Public Bill Committee

[Mr. Peter Atkinson in the Chair]

Schedule 6

Renewable transport fuel obligations

Amendment proposed [this day]: No. 1, in schedule 6, page 75, line 38, leave out subsection (2) and insert
(2) It is the duty of the Administrator to ensure that only renewable transport fuel that
(a) causes or contributes to the reduction of carbon emissions over its total lifecycle from planting or production to use, and
(b) contributes to sustainable development and the protection or enhancement of the national or global environment generally,
qualifies as a permitted fuel under this Act..[Martin Horwood.]

Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.

John Gummer: I am reminded that amendment No. 1 is narrowly drawn. It is not about the generalities of biofuels, but about the role of the administrator. I am sure that Members would agree that the role of the administrator is of considerable importance in the light of the growing understanding of concerns about the origins and derivations of biofuels. I declare an interest: for many years our company has been working with the largest manufacturer of biofuels from used fat. Indeed, we helped to develop the modern techniques that make that a very successful procedure. As should be the case when one declares an interest, I know a bit about the subject, and I support the Liberal Democrat proposals. If the presumption is not tested clearly that biofuels are better than mineral oils and that they do more for the environment than the equivalent fossil fuel, we bring the whole process into disrepute. That ought to be our main concern. It is very important to make that distinction, and I have indeed sought do so for a very long time.
I do not blame the Government, because it was difficult to get biofuels taken seriously, and that has not been helped by the way in which they have been seen, first, as the be all and end all, and the answer to every possible prayermaidenly or otherwiseand, secondly, by the same people, as precisely the opposite. It is said that there is no good biofuel to be found. Sometimes, those in the campaigning movements should pause awhile and recognise that it is not satisfactory to march people up to the top of the hill, and then march them down again. A little more careful consideration in the first place and a little less precipitate action in the second place, might make it easier for those of us with responsibilities to get a bit nearer the truth. It might also help us to avoid the I told you sos from the climate change sceptics, such as the Daily Mail, and all other trouble makers in this area. I hope, therefore, that those from the green organisations who read the report of this debate will recognise that they have not helped the debate about biofuels one little bit.

Phil Woolas: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. If I wanted to use taxpayers money, I would cross-reference the addresses of people who wrote to me in favour of biofuels with the addresses of those who wrote to me recently against biofuels. But I shall not waste the taxpayers money.

John Gummer: That temptation arises on many occasions. I am glad that the Minister has rightly fought against temptation, but I know exactly what he meansthe same is true of other things in life.
We must therefore try to make the Bill the most sensible answer possible. It goes against a lifetimes experience to say this, but I think that the Liberal Democrats were right to table amendment No. 1they know that that is my general view. It is right to make the changes that they have proposed, first because this is a matter of life cycles. It is quite a difficult thing to do, but at the same time it is essential. One cannot say that particular biofuels from particular sources are always as beneficial in one circumstance as another.
Let me give an example: biofuels produced close to the point of use are likely to have a lower carbon footprint than those produced a very long way away that have to be carried a long distance, although not necessarily. A biofuel source may be much more carbon intensive if the fuel is produced using a particular process rather than another way. A lot of research has shown that to be true.
I commend to the Minister the work of Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership, which he supports. That partnership has produced some good work on which we can base our judgments. I was sad that the Government found themselves unable to use its work from the beginning on the renewable transport fuel obligation. I hope that they can use it now and the amendment will enable it to be used.
Subsection (2)(b) of the amendment would widen the tone of the phrase by using the words enhancement, protection, national or global environment and generally. They are all useful additions that would help to achieve what the Government really want. I hope that the Government feel that they can take that on board.
Finally, the amendment is valuable because it would add to the administration of the systema point that you, Mr. Atkinson, drew our attention to earlier on. That is important because we must move to a world in which we take these matters into account automatically and without a second thought, so that this is not some great new operation stuck out there, but simply the way that we think and the means by which we move forward. It is what my mother used to refer to as good habits. There is a lot to be said for doing things the right way all the time. I shall put it bluntly: people who find themselves in extremis revert to type, so it is valuable for them to have good habits. When something crops up that they did not expect, I want the default mode of a society and a Government to be, This is how we behave and this is the mechanism that we always use. Therefore, I congratulate the Liberal Democrats for tabling the amendment, because it not only makes the point that needs to be made, but sets an example about how we ought to behave in all circumstances.
We should ensure that the two elements are measuredfirst, the life cycle, so that we know what the carbon footprint really is; and secondly, how it contributes to sustainable development, not only to the protection of, but to the enhancement of both the national and the global environment. All that should be seen not just in specifics, but in generalities. Therefore, I hope that the Government will find this a suitable amendment to accept. I know that it is always difficult to accept amendments but, after all, this one is in line with their own thinking.

David Maclean: May I say how relieved I am that my right hon. Friend has moved away from exhorting the Minister to be vulgar and is extolling the virtues of his mothers good habits. The Committee will be on safer ground if we stick with the latternot to mention the habits of any dustbin men. I rise generally to support, if not the amendment, the thrust of what has been said by my right hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Cheltenham. The Minister may say that the amendment is not necessary, because proposed new section 125A(2) of the Energy Act 2004, on page 75, already does what the amendment would do and that the Government intend to ensure that the administrator promotes only good biofuels.
A few years ago, I was one of those who thought that biofuels could do no wrong, but I was wrong to think that. I was perhaps looking at the issue from a Cumbrian or a United Kingdom perspective. I looked at the acres and acres of set-aside and at the weeds and thistles and thought, Goodness me, why are we promoting that? I know that theres a wildlife element involved, but cant we grow biofuels there instead? I was looking at the issue from the perspective of what we could do in our localities to grow indigenous British crops closer to home and convert them into biofuel, because I thought that was a better alternative to leaving land fallow or set aside. In those circumstances, there was a place for biofuels, and I called for more of them to be produced in Cumbria, so that we did not need to have a plague of ghastly wind farms, like a noose around the neck of the Lake district.
In the past few years, however, I have seen certain countries cut down their original, primal rain forests to grow sugar cane to convert into biofuels, and I therefore joined the school of thought that believes that biofuels can do no right. That, too, is wrong, and I suspect that the truth lies somewhere in between, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal said. It is utterly wrong to cut down original rain forests to grow short-term cropssugar cane or date palms for palm oilthat are then converted into biofuels and transported hundreds of thousands of miles around the world.
Colleagues on both sides of the Committee will be relieved to know that I am not going down the old biodiversity and rain forest speech route again, but it is a million times better to keep rain forests intact and preserve our biodiversity than to cut them down for biofuels. It is better for our carbon footprint to let them grow ad infinitum and then to let them rot and grow afresh than it is to cut them downthat immediately releases carbonthan to grow short-term crops for biofuels that do nothing to reduce our carbon footprint.
All that I want from the Minister is an absolute assurance that, even if the Government will not accept the amendment, the administrator will take into account the thrust of what the hon. Member for Cheltenham and my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal have said and will promote the supply of transport fuel using biofuels only if those biofuels have not been produced by destroying a better crop, such as primal rain forest or our upland bogs and peatlands, which have locked carbon in.
I have no objection to using biofuels if they are from short-term coppice or myriad other crops that I have never heard of and do not understand, if they come from close to home and if they do not involve a huge number of whatever the equivalent of food miles isI suppose that the term would be fuel miles. Similarly, I have no objection to biofuels if we do not cause more destruction or release more carbon into the atmosphere to create the modern environment to grow short-term biofuel crops. That is not the way to go, and I look forward to the Ministers assurance.

Phil Woolas: It is nice to see you back in the Chair, Mr. Atkinson. Let me say at the start how grateful I am to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport for making the statement on the Gallagher review to the House before we got to the amendment. I would like to say that that was a consequence of my Machiavellian and detailed planning, but I have always believed in the cock-up theory, not in the conspiracy theory. Seriously, however, it is good for the Committee that we are debating the amendment after the statement on the Gallagher review, because I suspect that right hon. and hon. Members would have smelled a rat and seen a conspiracy where there simply was not one.
The schedule and therefore the amendment are not about the rights and wrongs of the renewable transport fuel obligation. As you rightly said, Mr. Atkinson, they are about an amendment to the way in which the administrator works. However, the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Cheltenham is helpful in that it addresses the instruction to the administrator on how we may improve the confidence of the consumer and show that, under the scheme, biofuels are sustainable. That is the intention of schedule 6, in which we have made amendments that build on the policy and improve its functioning in exactly the area on which the hon. Gentleman tabled his amendment. It is about increasing sustainability and, with it, consumer confidence, let alone the environmental sustainability that we are all in favour of.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman and I can give an assurance to the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border that the Government agree with the policy behind the amendment. I have a problem with the amendment, which I will explain, if I may, Mr. Atkinson, but with your permission I shall briefly outline the purpose of the schedule before addressing the amendment specifically, otherwise I may lose the thread of the argument.
The changes to the renewable transport fuel obligation that we are advancing in the schedule are designed to enhance the operation of the order to give increased flexibility, but they are not essential to the operation of the RTFO. We are not debating whether that goes ahead, but talking about how it works. Under the schedule, a number of changes are made to the provisions of the Energy Act 2004, in order to improve it.
Proposed new section 125 would replicate the existing provision for setting up a non-departmental public body and appointing it as the administrator, so it preserves the effect of the order appointing the Renewable Fuels Agency. Proposed new section 125A would place a new duty on the administrator of the scheme to promote the supply of renewable fuel, which delivers carbon savings and contributes to sustainable development or general environmental protection. There is consensus on that point throughout the Committee. We want to use schedule 6 to improve the instruction to the administrator to ensure that there is sustainability. The amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Cheltenham goes a little bit further and, as I said earlier, we agree with that policy.
Of course, we acknowledge the point that the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal made about the worries about some biofuels and the production methods relating to some biofuels, but we do not wish to throw the baby out with the bath water. We recognise that to encourage research and development in future generations of biofuels, it is necessary to help create a market for existing biofuels so long as they are sustainable, as far as is humanly possible.
Proposed new section 125B would enable the Secretary of State to give written directions to the administrator about the use of any power that the administrator has, under an RTF order, to require information from fuel suppliers or to specify the form of the information or the period within which it is required. That power enables us to instruct the administrator to provide and report on the information that all of us want to see.
That is an abridged version of the rationale for the new schedule. Let me turn to amendment No. 1, tabled by the hon. Member for Cheltenham. I have already said that the Government agree with the policy behind the amendment. Let me take Committee members through the reasons, which I hope will satisfy them, why we do not want the specific wording. I strongly believe that I can convince the Committee that we are getting to where the hon. Gentleman wants to be, but by a route which, because of the European Union interest that he mentioned, gets us to the right place.
The criteria and methodology for demonstrating the carbon saving and sustainability of the products is complex. I do not want to hide behind that. We are committed to certification and sustainability criteria. The amendment would introduce a requirement under law that affected entitlement to certificates for the selling of biofuels and, consequently, the biofuels market. It would not define what is required. Without an amendment to the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligations Order 2007, of which the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle reminded us, to provide the necessary definitions, the law would be uncertain. It would therefore be left to the courts to decide on the criteria and the methodology.
My fear is that such uncertainty about the validity of certificates issued in the meantime could be used by those opposed to what we want to achieve to undermine the scheme. I think there is a consensus that the criteria and method for measuring carbon savings and sustainability should be set on a European Union-wide basis because we wish to create an EU market for good biofuels, rather than going it alone. It is an area where there is a self-evident benefit from an EU-wide policy.
My problem is that, at present, the European Union criteria and methods are being developed. I am advised that the EU law falls under the technical standards directive, which we strongly support. It is not something that Europe is imposing on us against our will. That will never happen. I want to make it clear that we support that because it is in our interests to have a biofuels market that it is EU-based. The technical standards directive does not currently allow member states to implement legislation that covers the same ground.
Under the directive, UK law setting carbon and sustainability requirements, including the amendment and other associated amendments to the 2007 order, would be subject to a stand-still period to prevent its implementation for at least 12 months to enable the EU criteria to be agreed and adopted. Furthermore, if we were unilaterally to introduce the criteria and method in the United Kingdom, it might be difficult to ensure compliance with EU trade rules. That is a subsidiary argument, but one that I put before the hon. Member for Cheltenham.
If the amendment were accepted, it would be legally ineffective until such time as the EU carbon-saving and sustainability requirements are adopted, at which point it would be superseded. My argument to the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border is not the usual ministerial contention that the amendment is not necessary because it is covered anyway, but that it is not necessary for different reasons. First, it would be ineffective for a year and, secondly, when we have the EU policy, it would be superseded.

Martin Horwood: The Minister makes a technically accurate and important point that was made also in another place. I referred earlier to the possibility of the EUs legislative timetable not going according to schedule and the directive not being adopted before the next European elections in June 2009. That raises a different scenario, which the hon. Gentleman should address.

Phil Woolas: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his argument and research. I admonish myself for not reading out the advice at the beginning of my speech, which covers the point. I was handed the paper before lunchor dinner, as we say in Lancashire.
The hon. Gentleman has a point. The United Kingdom cannot set mandatory standards unilaterally. They need to be agreed at EU level. We have already set a reporting mechanism within the law. What we are trying to do is to set out the requirements to the providers to report on the criteria, as our building block towards the European Union policy. That is as far as we can go before the EU adopts the policy.
The hon. Gentleman may be right, but I would ask him to consider the point that, in the circumstances to which he referred, we would be in the right position by following my argument, because we have established the reporting mechanism. We can slow down the RTFO levels through United Kingdom secondary legislation. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport announced a consultation on that point. We are following the route suggested by the hon. Member for Cheltenham.
Let me use another argument, that of the third party, which is from the noble Lord Teverson, the Liberal Democrat in the House of Lords. A similar amendment was tabled, fairly, by the Lib Dems in the other place. In response to my noble Friend, Lord Rooker, Lord Teverson said:
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his extensive reply
mine has clearly not been as extensive
which I have to admit was very persuasive.
He went on:
I am fully persuaded. The irony, as the Minister well knows, is that the whole biofuel debate moves at a faster rate than political dialogue.[Official Report, House of Lords;18 March 2008; Vol. 700, c. 239.]
The noble Lord Teverson was persuaded by the argument that I have put. I hope that the hon. Member for Cheltenham is, as well.

John Gummer: I am entirely persuaded by the Ministers argument, but does he not have to put forward a further argument? In the discussions in the European Union, we are faced by those who want to advantage some internal production of biofuels, for reasons nothing to do with sustainable development, climate change or anything else. It is important for him to be able to show clearly that he has been entirely within the law in his position. He will need to argue with those who want to produce biofuels from rape oil in France and from soya beans in Germany for entirely agricultural and electoral reasonsnothing to do with the real issues of climate change. He must show that he has treated the issue with great seriousness, because he might have some pretty tough discussions to get the final results that he and we want.

Phil Woolas: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for providing another bullet in the chamber, if I may put it that way. He is right. He raises a practical point. Let me try to amplify it for the hon. Member for Cheltenham, in an attempt to convince him of the force of my argument.
By signing up to European Union law, the UK is not able to implement unilaterally our own mandatory carbon and sustainability standards while the draft directive that I mentioned is being negotiated. That is because of the overlapping subject matter. The requirement proposed in amendment No. 1, tabled by the hon. Member for Cheltenham, and changes to the RTFO order to implement that, would have to be notified to the Commission under the technical standards directive and would be subject to a stand-still period.
The stand-still period is expected to be 12 months, as set down in the technical directive. It would, incidentally, be extended to 18 months, if during the 12 months the Council adopted a common position on the draft directive. Therefore, if unilateral UK action was proposed, by the time the applicable standstill period finished, the renewable energy directive would very likelyI would say almost certainlyhave been adopted and its provisions would supersede the proposed UK legislation. That is a new point for the hon. Member for Cheltenham to consider.
I am pleading with the hon. Gentleman. Although the Government agree with his policy, we think that schedule 6 is the best way to get to it. Schedule 6 beefs up the instruction to the administrator. The dangerif that is not too strong a wordwith the hon. Gentlemans amendment and the amendment in the other place is that they could pull the rug from under us, although we agree with their policy. I rest my case, as it were.

Martin Horwood: I am pleased by the degree of consensus in the Committee today and I am particularly pleased by the congratulations from the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal, whose expertise on these issues and record on environmental issues generally are to be respected. I therefore forgive him for his earlier party political pot shots, in this new spirit of cross-party co-operation.
As the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border rightly said, we have all been on a bit of a journey on the subject of biofuels. I think that it was the Secretary of State for Transport yesterday who slightly unkindly quoted the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), who only a couple of years ago made the definitive statement:
Five per cent. of all fuels sold in the UK to come from biofuels is a start, but it is a minimum step: we will need to go further in the future.
Like the right hon. Member for Witney, we have modified our position.

Gregory Barker: What my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) said is entirely possible. If one talks to scientists about the developments in biofuels, such that science and technology are employed to use the whole plant, it is entirely possible, and certainly conceivable, that we could be that ambitious, but not if biofuels are grown unsustainably. My right hon. Friend would always insist that they are grown sustainably, so I am afraid that it is a canard.

Martin Horwood: I am not sure that I remember the right hon. Member for Witney saying that to the Renewable Energy Association. However, we are on common ground in the belief that much more robust sustainability criteria are needed. Nevertheless, it is important not to throw out the biofuels baby with the bathwater.
The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal and others were a little unkind to members of the green movement and some of the non-governmental organisations that have been lobbying us, implying that they have simply switched position. Those of us who regard ourselves as members of the green movement have been accused on various occasions of holding an almost religious fervour about some causes, such as nuclear power and genetically modified foods, and of never being prepared to change our position. Well, this is a very obvious standing rebuttal of that accusation, because on this issue the consensus in the green movement has shifted. Therefore, the right hon. Gentlemans accusation was a rather simplistic one.

Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.

On resuming

Peter Atkinson: Order. Before I call the hon. Member for Cheltenham, may I say to the Committee that the business on the Floor of the House is likely to run without a vote until just before 6.50 pm? After that, when the Bill starts on its Committee of the whole House stage, there will be a series of Divisions. Members of the Committee may think it more convenient to make some progress before that time, because otherwise the latter stage of this Committee will be disrupted.

Martin Horwood: I was just extolling the virtues of cross-party co-operation and of the green movement generally. I shall move on to the specifics of the amendment.
As the Minister said, there is some common ground, and he was good enough to welcome the essence of the policy in our amendment. He was right to say that the status of the RTFO itself is not at issue. Interestingly, he said that what we seek to do is to give instructions to the administrator to ensure the sustainability of the fuels involved. The amendment proposes to use the word ensure instead of the current word promote, making the instruction in law to the administrator much stronger and more powerful.
In that sense, I am completely with the Minister. He suggests that amendment No. 1 introduces that requirement without sufficiently clearly defining it. He said that that might introduce uncertainty over the validity of certificates and that the criteria should be EU-wide. That is true and we agree with that, and we agree with sufficiently robust criteria being adopted at European level, as we have said. There is no shortage of definitions of sustainability around biofuels.
The Swiss Government already have a working scheme in which they have clearly defined measures of sustainability. The Environmental Audit Committee studied that scheme when we examined the issue. The Gallagher report also goes some way towards defining it. Professor Gallagher made the statement that it should be possible
to establish a genuinely sustainable industry provided that robust, comprehensive and mandatory sustainability standards are developed and implemented.
Professor Gallagher thinks that that is eminently possible, and goes on to make specific recommendations including
the replacement of volume or energy based targets with comparable greenhouse gas saving targets as soon as practicable.
There is a degree of consensus already available.
We then came on to the rather more technical and legal point. It is right to raise the point that the noble Lord Rooker raised in another place: that, in effect, there would have to be a 12-month standstill period for this regulation, and that it might in the end contradict EU trade rules. If all those scenarios came to pass and the renewable energy directive was adopted on time, the amendment might be ineffective because it would have to wait for the EU rules to be adopted and then it would be superseded.
That is the argument that my noble Friend Lord Teverson thought was so impressive in the other place. We have reflected together on the matter and realised that it is dependent on the renewable energy directive being adopted. That was the technical point that I put back to him, to which he said that I might be rightI think that I am quoting him correctly. I think that I am right. He said that policy cannot be set unilaterally because of the overlap of subject matter, but that is not true because the renewable transport fuel obligation itself is a unilateral piece of policy that is already adopted ahead of the renewable energy directive coming into force. I fear that I am not persuaded to withdraw my amendment.

Question put, That the amendment be made:

The Committee divided: Ayes 2, Noes 11.

Question accordingly negatived.

Schedule 6 agreed to.

Clauses 75 to 77 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 78

Power of Ministers and departments to offset greenhouse gas emissions

Phil Woolas: I beg to move amendment No. 27, in clause 78, page 36, line 43, after acquire, insert
and dispose of units or interests in.

Peter Atkinson: With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendment No. 28

Phil Woolas: Having failed to persuade the hon. Member for Cheltenham of the force of my argument, I will attempt to redeem myself by seeking consensus on amendments Nos. 27 and 28. These are minor, technical amendments. Clause 78 allows the Government and the devolved Administrations to purchase carbon units which, at the moment, is not allowed. Those could be used to help meet the targets in the Bill or to offset emissions from the central Government office estate.
I will explain the underlying legal position. The purpose of the clause is not to give Ministers and Departments the power to buy and dispose of carbon unitsthey can already do that under general law in the same way that I and other hon. Members have the inherent power to buy and sell things. We do not need an Act of Parliament to give us that power. However, if this Bill becomes an Act, the purchase of units could become a source of significant and ongoing expenditure. By convention, parliamentary approval through such a clause is needed to authorise such expenditure. The position is slightly different for the Welsh Ministers who, unlike other Ministers, have only those powers conferred upon them by statute and the clause is necessary for that reason.
Amendment No. 27 broadens that power and allows for the acquisition and disposal of carbon units and interests in carbon units. Interests in carbon units includes the ability to enter into futures contracts to acquire units at a later date based on a fixed price at the date of the agreement. It also provides the power to dispose of carbon units or interests in them, and will ensure that the UK and devolved Ministers have the power to buy and sell carbon units or contracts relating to them. That power exists anyway and this is not a debate about first principle. However, given that the power to acquire them is expressly mentioned, it made sense to put the point beyond any doubt.

Martin Horwood: I will speak briefly. I sense that the amendment was not drafted in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, but that it might have originated somewhere rather closer to No. 11 Downing street. It has the sniff of Treasury bean counting about it. When considering the pros and cons of offsetting, the Treasury has been remarkably immune to environmental arguments. However, at the prospect of Ministers squirreling away funds for their disposal outside of Treasury control, it has suddenly become interested.
This is an interesting amendment that may be technically and legally necessary and I shall not oppose it. I would be interested to hear the Ministers response on its origins and the rationale for it in relation to the Treasury.

Gregory Barker: I understand from the Minister that the clause is an enabling clause that allows the Government and the Departments to buy carbon credits to offset their emissions. If my reading of the amendment is correct, it enables Departments to sell carbon credits, as well as purchase them. That might be a rather cursory summary, but if that is the principle behind the amendment, we support it.
A few questions still need to be answered. First, the amendment will add to the ability to dispose of carbon credits the power to acquire them. This might simply be a matter of legal language, but will the Minister explain if anything is meant by disposing of the units, other than selling them? If the Government had the power to dispose of them in some other way, such as by nullifying or invalidating them, that could seriously affect the carbon market. If Departments had the power to acquire and invalidate units of reductions, it could cause a level of uncertainty in the carbon markets and contribute to unwanted volatility in the price of carbon. Will the Minister be clear that by dispose he exclusively means sell?
Similarly, Government amendment No. 28 seems superficially innocuous. If it simply clarifies that when the Treasury buys units, it owns them, it seems wholly reasonable. However, that poses an interesting question about what the Treasurys involvement in the carbon market will be. Is it the Governments intention to trade in carbon units? Will amendment No. 28 give the Treasury the power and scope to intervene in the carbon markets in a similar fashion to the way it speculates on gold? As hon. Members know, the Treasurys speculation on gold has cost the country billions and billions of pounds. Indeed, the decision to sell gold reserves has cost the Treasury more money than any single financial decision by any Chancellor on record.
If amendment No. 28 will open the door to similar speculation in the carbon markets, we will have to address it in more detail. Perhaps the amendment is not even required for that. Will the Minister clarify whether the Treasury has the power or the intention to tradeor speculate, as some of his old Labour colleagues might sayin the carbon market? If the amendment is for clarification only and the Minister can assure the Committee categorically that it is not even the thinnest end of a very thin wedge that could lead to speculating in the manner of the gold reserves, I apologise for being alarmist. I am sure hon. Members share my concern, given that the stakes are so high.

Phil Woolas: The biggest single retrograde decision by a Chancellor was the decision, as advised by the then right hon. Member for Witney, to join the European exchange rate mechanism at an unsustainable level against the express support of the vote of the national executive committee of the Labour party. The point about gold is that one has to look at what was done with the money in the meantime. It may well have been used to better purposes.

Anne McIntosh: What did you do with the money?

Phil Woolas: We invested in the economy of the United Kingdom to great effect.
Knockabout aside, the hon. Member for Cheltenham is scrutinising the Bill effectively. The Treasury, like any other Department, already has the power to buy and sell carbon units just like any other person. However, I am advised that the answer to his question is that the Treasury means the Lord Commissioners of the Treasury. They are not a corporate body. Amendment No. 28 will make it clear to a buyer of units that they can buy units from the Treasury even though it is not a corporate body. The hon. Gentleman is right that this is a technical provision.
The first question from the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle was sensible, but I thought his second ridiculous. In answer to his first question, the term dispose is about selling, but in certain circumstances it could also mean cancellingjust to complicate matters. For example, if the country had reduced its emissions beyond what it was required to do, and had surplus carbon units, under clause 16, the Government could bank those units into the next periodremember the debate about banking or borrowing over periodsor sell them to another country. That is the basic principle. It could involve cancelling, but in practice it means selling.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendment made: No. 28, in clause 78, page 37, line 8, at end insert
( ) If the Treasury acquire such units or interests in units, until they are disposed of they shall be treated as held by the persons for the time being constituting the Treasury..[Mr. Woolas.]

Clause 78, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 79 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 80

Guidance on reporting

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Peter Atkinson: With this it will be convenient to discuss Government new clause 6 and Government new clause 7.

Steve Webb: Clause 80, on corporate reporting of greenhouse gas emissions, was inserted in another place by my noble Friend Baroness Northover, and I warmly support its retention in the Bill, and the rejection of Government new clauses 6 and 7, which are a pale shadow of her version. To give a flavour of the paleness of that shadowI am not sure how colourfully I can convey the flavour of palenessthe Governments proposal is to take out the reporting requirements in clause 80 and to insert two other clauses.
New clause 6 refers to publishing guidance to assist reporting, which must be done by October 2009getting on for 18 months. The first draconian measure planned by the Government on such a vital issue, therefore, is the publication of guidance late next year to assist reporting. It will not necessarily require anyone to do any reporting, but those who do, or would like to, will get some guidance some time late next year.
New clause 7 promises a review of whether the reporting would contribute much, and must be completed no later than 2011. That means that we will get some advice in one year, and a review concluding in three years. One might sense a lack of urgency over the whole issue. The challenge, therefore, is to explain why it matters to the Committee. It has emerged during the debate, and in the contributions from Members on both sides, that we all share a common concern about climate change. The question is what role the corporate sector has, and how far the reporting requirements address those concerns. Our contention is that retention of clause 80, and even stiffening it up, would contribute far more than the Governments very weak alternative.

John Gummer: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that very large numbers of companies were extremely distressed by the Governments about-turn on the question of reporting? The best companies in the country felt that they had been deeply let down by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer. To them, this is another example of the Governments unwillingness to recognise that most companies want a common system whereby they are commonly comparable, and do not want the system to be led by the least good companies, whose previous mouthpiece was Lord Digby Jones, who has become a Minister. No doubt that is the reason for this sad situation.

Steve Webb: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I concur that there are companies behaving well, and that others must be dragged, kicking and screaming, to the climate change agenda. It is entirely unacceptable that companies that accept their social responsibilities in this area can be undercut or face unfair competition from those that do not.
One of the aims that we intend through the retention of the clause is consistency and transparency. There is no great desire to impose swingeing burdens on business for the sake of it. If we can ensure that the reporting that takes place is to the greatest extent reporting that companies might be doing anyway, particularly in a world of carbon trading and carbon budgets, measures that enable that to be done consistently and systematically are entirely welcome.
All members of the Committee will have received the letter from the Aldersgate Group, a coalition of businesses, lobby organisations, academics and hon. Members, who are coming together to argue for the retention and strengthening of the reporting requirements. It is worth thinking about why those might be desirable. The first thing to observe is that at present, the extent of reporting in annual reports or equivalent, according to Christian Aid, is quite limited. Although many companies do some reporting, it found only 16 FTSE-100 companies reporting emissions in their annual report or a parallel report, and the coverage of the emissions that were reported was often limited.
Quoting from Christian AidI think hon. Members will have seen these figuresonly 58 per cent. of the most direct and easily identifiable emissions are reported. Some emissions are omitted, and the indirect emissions caused by the companys activities further down the chain are also omitted. It is important that there should be comprehensive reporting of the direct emissions from a company, and a view should taken on the indirect impact of the companys activities and how far and in what way that should be measured. The idea of waiting more than a year for guidance and then three years for a review as to whether anything should happen is staggering in its lack of ambition.
Some companies already have similar obligations. For example, companies that fall within the carbon reduction commitment already have to monitor such matters closely, so for many companies the costs are marginal. Perhaps the data are being collected anyway and would have to be presented in a different or standardised way, but it is not an additional burden for many companies. No one expects the smallest businesses to be part of the scheme. Many of the largest businesses are already covered by such a scheme, but we want greater consistency.
It is worth stressing that we are moving into a new kind of world. In the discussion of earlier clauses, the Minister spoke about the setting of carbon budgets alongside the fiscal Budget. In a world where we are buying, banking and borrowing emissions, trading permits to pollute or selling excess permits where we have saved, such things will be almost literally part of the cash flow of major companies. Companies that have a significant impact on the environment through their activities will need to know what their emissions are, whether those are rising or falling and whether they can save more. As the scope of the emissions trading scheme increases, those issues will become the bread and butter of corporate life in Britain.
With an eye to the London stock exchange and a desire for Britain to be a leading part of carbon accounting and reporting, as the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal has said on other occasions, there is an opportunity for Britain to be a world leader and to establish expertise and advice on such matters, rather than the Government dragging their heels, kicking and screaming, to a destination that we all know we shall reach. That seems to be a key point. None of us believes that a Committee such as this in the next Parliament or so would imagine a world where businesses, and certainly big businesses, were not reporting such information systematically and on a comparable basis.
The attitudes of business are obviously important. Again, hon. Members will have seen that CBI members have been surveyed on the subject and some are enthusiastic, but the majority are willing to give it a try, with further work. Most businesses are not hostile to reporting. It is an area where, dare I say it, the climate is changing. In other words, people are starting to recognise that that will have to happen sooner or later.
There is inevitably an issue of cost on a matter such as this, but there are also benefits. I should be interested if the Minister gave us some idea as to what assessment the Department has made of the potential benefits in terms of carbon reduction from comprehensive, transparent and consistent reporting. Companies write to all hon. Members boasting of their credentials as socially responsible businesses, whether they sponsor computers in schools or whatever, and telling us what good guys they are. They increasingly do that in respect of carbon reduction, which is welcome, but we have no idea what the relative performance of those different companies is, because all we get are their figures on their definitions, with their coverage over time periods of their choosing. Therefore, there is limited scope for the competitive pressure to drive such things down, whereas if all the major companies had to report those figures consistently, the scope for pressure from shareholders, employees and consumers would be far greater. We all want to see a change of culture whereby this is as important a bottom line to many of the stakeholders in the business as the profit and loss account is to its shareholders.
There are costs involved. The Government have mentioned quite a high figure. We do not want something that is too onerousit is pointless to be gratuitously onerousbut we want something that will build on the data that have already been collected by businesses and enables the public to know what is happening.
There is widespread support outside the House for the retention of guidance on reporting and, indeed, probably for beefing it up. I suspect that there is precious little support for removing what limited provision there is in the Billwhich the Government did not even include in the first placeand replacing it with lily-livered alternatives that are not worth the paper they are written on.
I urge the Committee to consider retaining clause 80 and rejecting the Government new clauses.

Gregory Barker: I associate myself with the sensible remarks made by the hon. Member for Northavon. We Conservatives are disappointed that the Government appear intent on weakening the Bill. Their lordships did an excellent job in enhancing the Bill in the other place and I am sorry that the Government are, again, trying to move back from the efforts that were made there.
I have made it clear to the Committee previously that one of the many reasons why we strongly support the Bill is because it gives long-term certainty and clarity to business, which is sorely lacking and badly needed. Clause 80 is an important part of the Bill because it gives exactly that sought-after clarity. I am aware that there are already a number of voluntary reporting standards for greenhouse gas emissions, such as the carbon disclosure project, but despite the admirable efforts of groups such as the CDP, reporting of clear, comparable information about UK business carbon emissions remains low. The latest carbon disclosure survey, from October 2007, found that only 46 per cent. of the FTSE 350 companies provided quantitative emissions data and, to quote the carbon disclosure project report:
Investors still lack much of the necessary information to make informed decisions with respect to carbon emissions and embedded costs, given the limited quantitative disclosures by many of the companies listed in the FTSE 350.
For that reason, Conservative peers supported the inclusion of clause 80 in the Bill, and for the same reason I should like the clause to stay where it is. My party has long been aware of the necessity for greater clarity on carbon reporting, but with two caveats. First, one standard methodology should be agreed to, rather than allowing a situation to develop where a patchwork of different accounting methodologies are being used by different companies, resulting in little more than mutual confusion. Secondly, we do not want small enterprises given additional reporting requirements that would add even more red tape and costs to their businesses.
I draw Committee members attention to early-day motion 81, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth), which stated:
This House...congratulates businesses that have begun to measure to reduce the carbon emissions resulting from their operations, supply chains, products and services; further notes the difficulties in defining the parameters for such measurement and in agreeing methodologies; believes that such measurements would enable both informed comparison and customer choice; emphasises the need for national and international consensus on such measurement and methodologies; and calls upon the Royal Society to take forward the process for establishing a mechanism for achieving such a consensus
on such measurement and methodologies.

John Gummer: Is it not true that, as the cost of carbon becomes an increasingly real cost, companies are going to have to measure their carbon footprint much more effectively? Is it not much more expensive not to do so according to a standard mechanism? They will find, at some stage or other, that the broad-gauge people will have to come into line with the narrow-gauge people. The cost is considerable. Is it not much more sensible to do it now, to the value of everyone, not to give them extra expense, but to reduce it?

Gregory Barker: That would be eminently sensible. That would enhance economic value, because we would be creating a common market in carbon disclosure, a currency in carbon that would aid understanding, increasing the value and the economies of scale, rather than that haphazard approach. If we are going to have economic growth in those low-carbon industries, it is clear that we must have agreed common parameters. Existing clause 80, if implemented, would achieve that task with the speed and urgency required. Business could then get on with the real job of making important investment and strategic decisions based on clear, uniform information. The first responsibility of a modern Government is to provide a stable framework within which business can operate. I do not think that anyone, certainly on the Committee, would contest that carbon and the price of carbon are here to stay and will be an increasingly important part of our national and international economy.
Importantly, clause 80 does not apply to smaller businesses, only to any company that is required to produce a business review under the Companies Act 2006. That means that any company that qualifies for any two of the following conditions would be exempt: companies with turnover of less than £5.6 million, a balance sheet of not more than £2.8 million or fewer than 50 employees. That existing clause is enabling only, and is suitably flexible, permitting the Secretary of State to distinguish between different categories of company, such as by sector or size, and by emissions type. It is important to know that clause 80 is supported by a wide range of businesses under an umbrella organisation called the Aldersgate Group, as has been saidcompanies as diverse as British Telecom, United Utilities and the Co-op. City funds, such as Morley, London Bridge Capital and Quadris, are also supportive. The Governments alternative, as proposed in new clauses 6 and 7, might not act as an industry driver to the same extent as clause 80 would.
Why does the proposed voluntary statutory guidance not include the requirement on businesses to publish their emissions data in their annual report and accounts? How does the Minister expect regulations to result in greater transparency in carbon reporting when the requirement to report no longer appears in legislation? Does the Minister feel that a review date deadline of 1 December 2011 for assessing the contribution of carbon reporting to meet the Governments climate change objectives is a dateover three years awaythat reflects the urgency with which we need to get to grips with the issue and to get British business emissions under control? In the final analysis, what UK plc needs is a common protocol that is consistent with international reporting standards, that will act as a significant driver for changereal, dynamic industrial change in the corporate sectorand will further enhance the City of Londons ambitions to become a world leader in carbon accounting, reporting, trading and so on. Finally, any solution must create a level playing field, which would allow consumers and investors to make meaningful comparisons between competitors.
At the end of the day, this all smacks of textbook economics on the part of the Labour Government, who seek to do right by business and the private sector but who fundamentally do not understand the dynamics of the private sector and of the wealth creators. It is backward-looking, and failing to understand that progressive, modern, entrepreneurial businesses in Britain today would welcome such forward-looking legislation. The clause is not anti-business; it is creating the necessary conditions for new businesses to grow and flourish in the low-carbon economy and for creating the dynamic change that we must see if we are going to continue to grow. The change is a backward-looking, regressive move. I greatly regret the Ministers opposition.

Anne Snelgrove: I have been listening with interest to what the hon. Gentleman has been saying. However, I wonder whether he agrees with the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan), the shadow Cabinet spokesman on business, enterprise and regulatory reform, who described corporate reporting of greenhouse gas emissions as heavy-handed bureaucracy in The Independent on Sunday on 6 April. Does he agree with that description?

Gregory Barker: Without seeing the full quotation, I do not think that I could pass comment on a very narrow excerpt. However, I think the hon. Lady will find that there is always concern about any new regulation. Of course we are the party of business and enterprise, and we would rightly exclude from these regulations small business. If the Government were to impose such requirements on small and medium-sized enterprises and small entrepreneurs, they would be unduly excessive at this stage of the development of the low-carbon economy.
However, let us be absolutely clear: we are committed to an ambitious fast-forwarding of the low-carbon economy and that will not happen with a timid, unambitious, step-by-step, incremental approach to business regulation. The fact that the proposed date is 2011, when this Government will have long been swept from power, is simply another sign that this Government talk the talk but are not prepared to walk the walk.

Nick Hurd: I refer the Committee to my declaration in the Register of Members Interests. I will speak very briefly, because I would like to keep my powder dry for new clause 8, but I support the principle of mandatory disclosure of greenhouse emissions for companies of a certain size, which is how clause 80 is framed.
We recommended that mandatory disclosure in the quality of life policy commission, because we see it as a piece of constructive regulation that will perform a key task in meeting the key challenge of helping us to put a value on carbon. Putting a value on carbon is not necessarily the same as putting a price on carbon. It is a process of elevating the importance of this new currency, this new business risk, which is carbon, to the level of the boardrooms of major British companies, because it is a major business risk that they will have to manage.
In seeking to do that, we are not promoting a piece of excessive bureaucracy that goes against the grain of the market; we are seeking to accelerate an existing market trend. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle stated, one only has to look at the trend of take-up for the carbon disclosure project and the initiatives run by Trucost to see that there is a trend of growing participation.
Again, when one talks to businesses and asks, How big a burden is it on business to do this? the answer is, This is not insuperable bureaucracy at all. Having said that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal pointed out there is an urgent need to develop a common standard, because that would be easier for the businesses involved and it would also make it much easier for increasingly interested private investorsowners of capitalto make comparisons between the companies that they invest in.
So, very briefly, I see clause 80 as a very welcome addition to a Bill that is designed to be a framework Bill, sending the most powerful signals to the market, and it is a nudge at exactly the right time, if one wants, as we do, the British economy to be in the vanguard of the transition to the low-carbon economy. If one wants that to happen, one wants British companies to be among the most energy-efficient and the most carbon-productive in the world, and we must get on with it, because this is a very real risk that people will have to manage.
It is extremely disappointing in this context, when there is a need for the Government to send strong signals to the market, that we see a Government in retreat from what is, as has been pointed out by the hon. Member for Northavon, really quite a timid proposal. I would actually go further. I would encourage the Minister to look further up the chain of capital, which is extremely apathetic now, and look at the way that pension funds and insurance companies, which own 50 per cent. of the FTSE 350, are engaged with the issue of climate change. The answer is that they are insufficiently engaged with it.
I urge the Government to look at the statutory requirement on pension fund trustees and their fiduciary duty, because companies such as Freshfields are beginning to point out that pension funds fiduciary duty must take into account climate change. However, we hear nothing from the Government in this respect and pension fund trustees are not engaged with this issue. Equally, insurance companies have no obligation on them at all in relation to climate change. If we saw activity upstream in the chain of capital, it would drive down through the choices made by fund managers, and we would start to see a process of engagement between capital and business. We have the most powerful capital markets in the world, and they are not being deployed in the interests of the agenda. We talk a lot about how we want the City of London to be the centre of carbon finance, yet when push comes to shove, and when we see a test whereby the Government are asked to take a relatively small initiative that goes with the grain of the market, they retreat rather than advance. The disclosure is insufficient. We need to do more. That would be extremely welcome, and we shall listen carefully to the Ministers argument.

John Gummer: This is the part of the Bill where the Governments actions seem extraordinary. I find them difficult to follow, and I shall explain why. All the indications are that progressive business is happy with the change in the Bill made in the House of Lords. If the Government, perfectly reasonably, lay a business review requirement under the Companies Act 2006, it looks peculiar, given the Bill, if that business review requirement does not contain the element of carbon reporting that is suggested. In any case, not to do so looks very odd against the rest of the Governments policy.
There needs to be a significant reason for such action. So far that has not been divulged to us, although perhaps the Minister can produce it. He knows that, if he produces a good reason, people are prepared to support it or, at least, not to oppose it, but it will have to be a very good reason. It will have to explain matters to the co-operative movement, which has after all supported the Labour party for many years and clearly sees the measure as a proper way forward. It is also crucial for business. I hope the Committee will not mind my relating a story about why getting the carbon figures right makes a huge difference.
It is clear that retailers will demand that the carbon cost of every product is shown on the product. That is one of the exciting steps that will be taken. It will be a big step forward. Members of the Committee know my interests in such matters. They are set out in the Register of Members Interests. One of the companies that tried to find out its carbon footprint was PepsiCo, with which I am not connected, butI am interested that it did that. It measured the carbon footprint of a packet of crisps and discovered that, for 30 g of crisps, 75 g of carbon were used.
That seemed a large amount, and because measurements had been taken, the company thought that it had better find out the reason for thatamount. It discovered that, because it had quite reasonably denominated a particular size of potato that fitted its machines for chopping, farmers used more water than they would have done otherwise to make sure that the potato was big enough. The potato, being a great user of water in any case, became, so to speak, a bag of water.
Once the potatoes were chopped up, a lot more oil had to be used to fry out the potato water. As a result of measurement, PepsiCo decided that that was a silly waste of money and that it would be better off to change the machines so that they took a smaller potato, and to insist on mass as the measurement of the potato that it wanted. It would use less frying oil, reduce the cost of manufacturing the crisps, and the company could genuinely say that it had used less carbon to produce them. The point of the story is simple. Measurement is a crucial part of what we need to achieve our ends under the Bill. Not to recognise that in the Bill is to repeat the abiding failure of the present Administration.
I do not want to return to the subject of smart metering, but the Government have been in power for 11 years and still have only two pathetic pilot schemes. They cannot manage to roll out smart metering, when the Liberal Democrats have enabled them to do so by statute. If the Government had acted when they had cross-party agreement, that would have made more difference to our energy use than any other single act.
The Government will understand why we are suspicious of their inability to take on board the fact that measurement is crucial for action. We must measure. If we do not measure, we do not act. It is a central part of any sensible policy. To measure, there must be a sensible comparator, and the Carbon Trust has been sensible about that when dealing with carbon footprint marks on packets of crisps. It does not want different marks that do not have the same meaning, so that one cannot be measured against the other. It knows that most people have no idea what 75 g of carbon means, but they know that 75 g is lower than 100 g and that 65 g is lower that 75 g. People know that there is some kind of magnitude and as long as the measurement is done on the same basis, there will be some mechanism for making a judgment.
That is true about the world as a whole. Big businesses are concerned that we are gradually developing a range of different mechanisms for measurement, such as those from the old days when we tried to measure different series of interests. That is why we had the annual percentage rate. It was the only way to ensure that we compared like with like. In the end, people had to bring together a whole series of different mechanisms, which was complicated. Light-heartedly, I used the example of the broad and narrow gauge. It would have been more sensible if people had decided at the beginning what gauge they wanted. If they had made the correct decision, we would have had broad gauge, which would have been more sensible and comfortable.
We must have certain standards. Governments are usually sensible about that, so why not in this case? It is because there are people in the business world who always want to say no. I hope the Minister will not take this personally, but I must say something in a very direct way. As I am a religious convert, I can say that converts are dangerous because they tend to get rather excited about whatever it is that they have been converted to. I try to be careful about that in matters of religion, but the trouble with the Labour party is that to some extent, it is a convert to capitalism. Its difficulty is that it does not distinguish bad capitalists from good capitalists, as it has never understood the system. It gets led astray by the worst voices in the whole set-up.
The least good businesses do not want any regulation and do not see why they cannot continue doing what they have always done. When they are brought forward, the Labour party believes them. Those of us who have always been capitalistcradle capitalists, if I may make that comparisonknow perfectly well that people cannot be allowed to get away with that. We should look at the best and ask how we can enable the best to do better and the least good to catch up, and how we can do that in a way that is not too heavy handed.
We should take those who are big enough to bear the burdens and set the standards, and give them higher standards and expect more of them. That is what we should do. Oddly, the Government accept that idea in the context of health and safety. They expect businesses of all kinds to report the number of accidents, and nobody says that adding up accidents is too difficult. It is the first thing that must be done before action can be taken. If we do not know how many accidents there have been, we cannot put them right. If we do not know what the carbon footprint is, we cannot do anything to reduce it.
Big companies have enough vision to know that they must take such measures anyway, that it is good for them and enables them to reduce costs, and that it is not an incubus but something that might be valuable. They would like to get some competitive advantage, so they want a standard through which to compare one with another so that the system is not misused. All that seems sensible, so why on earth do the Government not want to do it? There might be some remarkable explanation that we have not yet discovered, but which we shall hear. Let us assume that there is.
Why will the Governments alternative take so long? What on earth are we proposing? The problem is supposed to be urgent. We are faced with real difficulties. It is the biggest threat facing mankind, and the biggest danger to the continuation of civilisation. The Committee agrees on all that, yet the Government say, It will take us 18 months to produce the guidelines, which will be entirely voluntary, and then we will have a review in 2011. My goodness! That is absolutely the wrong example to set to the nation. Even if there is a frightfully good reason that no one has heretofore heard for not reporting such basic facts, there is no possible reason for not doing something quickly. Even if the Government began to convince us of the first of those circumstances, they could not convince us of the second. A leisurely march along the promenade at Worthingthat is the attitude that the Minister suggested

Phil Woolas: Why Worthing?

John Gummer: Because it is a more polite word than Bognor! A leisurely stroll on a Saturday afternoon is the sort of thing one might do when one has nothing much more in mind. Instead, we should be setting an example by getting on with the most serious job facing us.
The Governments proposal has the worst possible connotations, sets the worst possible example and gives full rein to the worst possible suspicions. If I considered the proposal afresh, and was told that the Government do not want to insist that big businesses tell the public their carbon intensity in a form that is measurable and comparable, but say instead, We will take 18 months to produce some guidelines, after which we will take another couple of years before we are prepared to review the situation, I would suspect that the Government did not mean anything at all. I would suspect that the Government had not got it.
This is a serious matter for the Minister. I know that he has got it, but I suspect that bits of the Government have not. The ill-named DBERR seems to be at the heart of all this, and I suspect that a particular Minister there is even more at the heart of it, as he was at the heart of the disgraceful U-turn by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, who now happens to be the Prime Minister, in seeking a bit of extra kudos.
The Government must be very careful. They promised us proper reporting, but that changed, not as a result of any ministerial decision, of proper investigation or of real concerns, but following an overnight decision by the then Chancellor in order to curry favour, pressed by the man who then became a Minister in the Department of so-called enterprise. That is why we feel so suspicious, not of the Minister who is present, but of the Governments whole history on reporting and measurement. It is a sorry tale. I would very much like my fears and suspicions to be allayed, but I suspect that they will not be. I hope very much that those with broader minds, bigger hearts and a greater understanding of what this is all about will join us in insisting on retaining the clause and throwing out those two pusillanimous suggestions, neither of which is worth a row of beans.

Phil Woolas: We have had a tremendous debate on this issue. It has been fascinating to witness Committee members political and ideological acrobatics. We have heard some excellent soundbites and accusations. The proposals have been described as haphazard and textbook economics. I thought at one point that the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle was going to accuse me of being old Labour. My solicitors have been e-mailed in case he repeats that outside the room.
This has been an interesting debate, but it is based on a false premise. The debate has been caricatured as a choice between mandatory or voluntary. We believe that the Governments strategy that is being presented to the House will be effective. It is all very well to act in haste, but if we do so and it does not work, we will not achieve the objectives that have been set out by hon. Members.
First, let us look at the clauses that we are discussing.

Anne McIntosh: Will the Minister satisfy me that he is not refusing to stick to the reporting procedures under clauses 80 on the grounds of cost? Proof has been given that the costs will be minimal and that there will be direct benefits to business for the reasons given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal. Will the Minister satisfy me that he is not refusing to acquiesce on reporting procedures on the grounds of cost?

Phil Woolas: Yes, and I hope to persuade the hon. Lady of much more than that. The strategy outlined by the Government in the Bill and elsewhere is an effective way to achieve reporting. The Government are making an important point and it is supported by the CBI. I do not raise this argument just to reassure the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal. The CBI briefing states that
The CBI supports carbon reporting by firms and has an initiative underway to assess the feasibility of a common standard of carbon reporting that all firms could use.
The crucial point is that we should not prejudge how this measure should be implemented. Therefore, we do not support the amendment made in the Lords on corporate reporting. The Governments argument is that it would be tokenistic to say that we support mandatory reporting before we have the common methodology that hon. Members have been arguing for. We must develop a common method of reporting before it can be made mandatory. To say that it should be mandatory and to caricature the Government by saying that BERR Ministers have been foot-dragging is unfair. We are laying out a strategy to achieve carbon reporting.

Martin Horwood: I must declare my connection to Business in the Community through the all-party group on corporate responsibility.
It is quite extraordinary that the Government are talking about prejudging common criteria. There is a plethora of common criteria out there, such as ISO 14001, Business in the Community and the environment index. There are many indices and bases. As the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal pointed out, a lot of work went into the operating and financial review, and it was ready to be implemented days before it was dropped on a whim by the Government. It is naive and disingenuous of the Government to suggest that there has not been sufficient time to prepare common criteria. That is clearly nonsense.

Phil Woolas: I will ignore the phrase naive and disingenuous. One cannot have a plethora of common methods. If an auditor told a company to choose the method of accounting that it wanted and there was no national regulation on which one to use, companies would collapse.

Martin Horwood: That is precisely the process that business went through in the preparation of the operating and financial review. The whole thing was designed to provide a common framework that took the best from other reporting criteria and provided a common basis on which all business was agreed, but the Government ditched it.

Phil Woolas: The hon. Gentleman is urging me to do exactly what the Government are doing. That is why we have laid down the timetable. I shall repeat what the CBI said:
How this might be implemented
the common standard of carbon reporting
should not be prejudged.
That is the point. We have a number of methodologies and a debate in this country. Government new clause 6 is stronger in this regard than clause 80. If hon. Members who oppose clause 80 read new clause 6, they will see that it states:
The Secretary of State must publish guidance.
However, clause 80 gives no date by which that should take place. Clause 80 is silent on the date, and it would allow the Secretary of State to ignore any compulsion on reporting. The Governments new clause states:
The guidance must be published not later than 1st October 2009.
I remind hon. Members that we are in the financial year 2008-09, so that is the earliest date.

Gregory Barker: The Minister is right that we need guidance, but he fails to grasp that people are looking to the Government for leadership. They are looking for that elusive quality of courage that the Government talk about but do not show. People want the Government to make a decision, but why should we have to wait until 2011? The Manhattan project was completed in less time than that. The Minister has made no case at all for why it should be spun out until 2011it is pathetic.

Phil Woolas: In which case why is the hon. Gentleman supporting clause 80, which is silent on a date? The Governments new clause provides that the guidance must be published no later than 1 October 2009at the end of the current financial yearas I shall explain, using the powers that we already have in the Companies Act 2006. Many companies are already reporting, so it would be folly to put in place a mandatory system without being able to define what that system was. That would be dangerous for all concerned.

John Gummer: It would not be folly at all. All it would mean is that there would be a clear, mandatory framework. All the Minister needs to say to the Committee is that the Government will announce the guidance within six monthsit cannot be any longer than that because they already have it in the work that was done for their foolishly disbursed original arrangementand follow the rules. Why not? We would then have put in place the whole of the package. For some reason unknown to me, the Government are always saying that they must do this, that and the other bit before it is ready, yet they want the general framework. That is how the Government normally operate, which is why the House of Commons spends its time in such a way.
That is all the Minister needs to do, so will he please now say, I will do it in six months; I guarantee that that is what we will do, and we will follow what the mandatory arrangement means, because it will then be mandatory? Under the Ministers proposals, there is no assurance that it will be mandatory, even if the Government meet the dates, have the discussions and go to review.

Phil Woolas: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell me which system I am to mandate?

John Gummer: The point is that it would be perfectly possible today to mandate the system that industry had agreed in the original proposals for reporting. As the Minister does not want to do that, I have suggested that, given that there is no date, it does not stop him giving the Committee a commitment that within six months he will have come to an agreement to mandate what he will then decide is the best system. That is what the Government should do. They should decide on that, in company with the CBI and other organisations, and if he were to promise to do that in six months, we would get ahead with a mandated system. That would fit perfectly well.

Phil Woolas: The new clause sets a deadline, which is after the current financial year. One has to be realistic about such things.

Gregory Barker: Why is the financial year in November?

Phil Woolas: We are talking about requiring companies to report. That means that we have to give them advance notice before the year in which they are required to report the methodology behind what they are reporting.
Mr. Gummerrose

Phil Woolas: I give way to the right hon. Member for frustrated, south.

John Gummer: I feel frustrated because this is a ridiculous argument. The fact is that we do not need 18 months to give people a years notice. We want six months. They will still have to have a years notice; we know that. Let the Government show that they can do something in six months. Six months is a very long time in which to get this done. We can do it perfectly well. All the evidence is there. It is a question of getting three or four parties around a table and saying, Which of these are you going to go for? The Government have to go for it and make the announcement. The mandatory arrangements are here, and we proceed. We have taken a year off the Ministers present timetable, as far as the first stage is concerned, and two years off the second stage. Have we not saved three years?

Phil Woolas: With respect, the right hon. Gentleman is repeating himself. It is a responsible course of action to give companies advance notice. The right hon. Gentlemans argument would have strength if there was an agreed reporting system, but there is not. Many people argue that the system should be international as well as domestic. Different systems are proposed. That is why the CBI, in its considered opinion, supports the Governments position, which sets out a timetable for moving forward. Let me put some of the more technical arguments, and then I will come back to the policy argument in an attempt to persuade the Committee that the Government are not dragging their feet. We are setting out a procedure to get to where we want to be.

Steve Webb: The Minister has assured us of his intent. As ever, I do not doubt him. However new clauses 6 and 7 would not have been drafted if the Government had not lost in the Lords. Why were new clauses 6 and 7 not in the Bill in the first place if the Government are so committed to such things?

Phil Woolas: The hon. Gentleman is having his cake and eating itor trying to. Let me quote what my noble Friend Lord Rooker said in response to the debate in the other place. He said:
As I and others have already said, when the Bill goes to the other place
by that he meant here
the Governments collective view and individual views will determine how the Bill finally ends up and the lines that are taken. There are no lines in the sand in that respect. Every amendment that this place
the other place
sends to the other place will be considered and either rejected or modified, as happens when the Government think again.[Official Report, House of Lords, 31 March 2008; Vol. 700, c. 774.]
That was what my noble Friend undertook to do. He took the spirit of what the other place was saying and said, I will look at this. I will work out a pathway to get there. Rather than criticising the Government, I was expecting that hon. Members would say, Well done, we have a way forward on which we have consensus.

John Gummer: Let me try not to be frustrated with the Minister, but very direct. The difference is this: under the clause, people have to do something. Under the Governments new clauses, there is no reason why they should have to do something. Those are two different things. That is not carrying the spirit of one, but merely using the words and the form. It is a hollow shell. If the Minister guarantees that he will use some other powers in a sensible time scale, we are willing to listen to him. As long as he asks us to accept that it takes 18 months to come to a conclusionwhen most industrial spokesmen believe that it can be done much more quicklyand then does not commit himself to impose the measure in the way in which the clause in the Bill insists, we really have to say to him that the proposal is a pale shadow that is unconnected with the spirit of what was happening in their lordships House.

Phil Woolas: I have accused the right hon. Gentleman of repeating himself, and I am repeating myself now. That argument would be fine if existing clause 80 told me what to dowhich system of mandatory reportingand by when. It does not say by when. There is no date.
I can do better than the right hon. and hon. Members are asking. Not only can I give a commitment, but I can point to a power that already exists. If we wanted to impose different requirements on companies, there are already comprehensive powers to vary reporting and accounting requirements in the Companies Act 2006. Section 416 gives the Secretary of State the power to make provision by regulation about matters to be disclosed in the directors reports. Section 468 includes a power for the Secretary of State to make provision by regulation about the reports that companies are required to prepare, and their form and content. There is already a requirement on companies to report the environmental impacts of their activities.
The debate is taking place in a vacuum. Opposition Members are trying to portray the Government as somehow backtracking and foot-dragging. Instead, we are setting out a strategy to achieve the reporting of greenhouse gas emissions. Let me make an additional point: the existence of climate change agreements, the European Union emissions trading scheme and the new carbon reduction commitment already require companies to do what is being asked of the Government. The idea that the Government are foot-dragging is not borne out by the facts or the proposals before the Committee.
Mr. Hurdrose

Phil Woolas: I give way to the hon. Gentleman who, I know, feels strongly on the issue.

Nick Hurd: The requirement to report the impact on the environment is not the same as the requirement to report greenhouse gas emissions directly. Will the Minister be clear? Do the Government support the mandatory disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions from companies that are required to produce a business review under the Companies Act 2006?

Phil Woolas: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Government, like him, support the idea of cap and trade and of carbon trading. In order to pursue that policy, one has to have common standards of measurement, verification and reporting. It would be irresponsible for the Government to pursue a mandatory system of reporting until there was a clear understanding of what that system should be for those companies that would be taken in by the wider measures. That is why we have set out what we believe to be a sensible pathway forward. Hon. Members are expressing frustration, but they should remember that companies are already required to report on their activities under the environmental requirements of the Companies Act. Those requirements could include the point made by the hon. Gentleman. They cover other matters, as I have explained in the past 60 seconds.

Nick Hurd: Entirely correctly, the Minister has laboured the point about the need for a consistent system. The debate is more about timing than purpose. However, he is still dodging the question. Do the Government believe that it should be mandatory for companies that are required to produce a business review to report specifically their greenhouse gas emissions, not their impact on the environment?

Phil Woolas: I am not dodging the question, but the question that would have to be answered would be, On whom? Would we be talking about all companies in the United Kingdom, including those many tens, if not hundreds, of thousands for which it might not be practical? That is why I think that this method is a good way forward.
New clause 6 commits the Secretary of State to produce guidance on reporting by 1 October 2009. That is the time scale in which we believe that we shall have a common understanding. It also fits in with the international timetable.

John Gummer: It is clear that the Government require the business review from only companies of a certain size. Is it not fair to come back to the Minister and ask a simple question? Do the Government believe that it is right to have mandatory reporting of greenhouse gas emissions from companies of the size for which a business review is required?

Phil Woolas: I understand why the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal and the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood are pressing me on this point. I repeat that we already have a system in place for companies that fall within the cap-and-trade schemes to report. Let me remind the Committee that one half of UK emissions are covered by schemes. That is already the case, and the schemes include the major companies, some of which have been referred to today.
I will not fall into making what I believe to be a tokenistic gesturegiven the suggestion that this is somehow an environmental virility testby saying that I will require all companies under all circumstances to report when I do not know what the methodology of such reporting would be. Frankly, that would be irresponsible. The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal seems to shake his head in frustration, but he has not answered my question. What system of reporting does he want me to mandate?

John Gummer: I have often sat in the Ministers position and I know that it is embarrassing. He knows that he wants to confuse two questions because it is easier to answer one than the other. Let me un-confuse him on the questions, of which there are two.
The first is about the method on which the reporting is based. The Minister has already admitted that half the companies have a method for reporting, so this is not as far removed as he sometimes makes it sound, but let us put that on one side.
We are asking about the principle, not about every company or medium-sized company or anything else. We are talking specifically about the companies that the Government already cover with their business review requirementsthe companies that they have said are big enough to make this sort of system work. Will he please tell the Committee whether he thinks that they should report under a mandatory requirement, once a system is designed that fits everyone?

Phil Woolas: The right hon. Gentleman has dissected the question fairly. We would not support a comprehensive mandatory system that involved all companies, irrespective of whether there was a view that such reporting would contribute towards the reduction of emissions. As I expect that he knows, mandating a common reporting standard for companies requires something that is proportionate and that works.
I hope that I have answered the question to the right hon. Gentlemans satisfaction. If not, let me add that the strategy that we are laying out in new clause 7 is to commit the Secretary of State to reviewing the contribution of mandatory corporate reporting to achieving the UKs climate change objectives and to reporting back to Parliament. That review should take account of reporting under the new reporting requirements introduced by the Companies Act 2006. Companies are now beginning to draft their first business reviews under the new requirements, and DBERR has already announced that it will look at the first batch in 2010. For my Department, I intend to ensure that that reporting is contributing to a reduction in emissions.
My timetable is responsible, given companies reporting periods. It is based on existing powers in the 2006 Act, and, if the Committee accepts the Governments new clauses, that will be further strengthened by a timetable for the role of the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Clause 80 does not require a timetable. It sets out that reporting should be mandatory without expressingI repeat thiswhat the definition of the common standard is or what timetable should be put forward. My argument is that the Governments position has been caricatured. This is not a debate on the difference between saying, Lets be bold and lets be brave; lets get on with it and do it, and a Government who are dragging their feet because of a misunderstanding of capitalism, as has been described. Instead, it is a debate between the tokenism of Opposition Members and, as suggested by this side, a sensible way forward that will provide for a reduction in UK emissions and provide the world leadership that I know that the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood and the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal seek.

John Gummer: If the situation is as the Minister says, why is he not prepared to amend the clause with a date by which the guidance would be laid and to accept the rest of the mandatory arrangements? It is not just a question of whether a company makes a major contribution to meeting our climate change requirements. It is a matter of interest for stakeholders all over the country as to how far a company carries forward its responsibilities for reducing its greenhouse emissions. All of us ought to know about that and make our businesses decisions in respect of it. Why did he not table two amendments so that we could have agreed with them?

Phil Woolas: If we were to make reporting mandatory at this stage, before reviewing whether the compiling of the information took place across the boardthis is the right hon. Gentlemans PepsiCo examplewe would be doing that before we knew whether it improved the situation. We should remember that we are talking about many thousands of companies, especially beyond the existing carbon trading schemes. Perhaps I should have put more emphasis on that point.
I reject the argument that the Government are dragging their feet. We have set out a way forward that is based on an effective strategy that will allow Governments to consider the experience and that fits into the reporting timetable. As I emphasised, we have the power under the Companies Act 2006 to do what hon. Members are urging us to do.
I urge Committee members to reject existing clause 80 and to agree to the Government new clauses.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:

The Committee divided: Ayes 6, Noes 10.

Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 80 disagreed to.

New Clause 2

Duty to have regard to need for UK domestic action on climate change
(1) In exercising functions under this Part involving consideration of how to meet
(a) the target in section 2(1) (the target for 2050), or
(b) the carbon budget for any period,
the Secretary of State must have regard to the need for UK domestic action on climate change.
(2) UK domestic action on climate change means reductions in UK emissions of targeted greenhouse gases or increases in UK removals of such gases (or both)..[Mr. Woolas.]

Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 3

Advice of Committee on Climate Change on impact report
(1) It is the duty of the Committee on Climate Change to advise the Secretary of State on the preparation of each of the Secretary of States reports under section 55.
(2) The Committee must give its advice under this section in relation to a report not later than six months before the last date for laying the report before Parliament (see subsections (2) to (4) of section 55).
(3) The Committee must, at the time it gives its advice under this section to the Secretary of State, send a copy to the other national authorities.
(4) As soon as is reasonably practicable after giving its advice under this section the Committee must publish that advice in such manner as it considers appropriate..[Mr. Woolas.]

Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 4

Reporting on progress in connection with adaptation
(1) Each report of the Committee on Climate Change under section 35 to which this section applies must contain an assessment of the progress made towards implementing the objectives, proposals and policies set out in the programmes laid before Parliament under section 56 (adaptation to climate change).
(2) This section applies to the report in the second year after that in which the Secretary of State lays the first programme under section 56 before Parliament.
(3) After that, this section applies to the report under section 35 in every second year after that in which the Committee last made a report to which this section applies, subject to any order under subsection (4).
(4) The Secretary of State may by order provide that this section shall apply to the report under section 35 in the year specified in the order and in every subsequent year.
(5) An order under subsection (4) is subject to negative resolution procedure..[Mr. Woolas.]

Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 5

Collection of household waste
In section 46 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (c. 43) (receptacles for household waste), after subsection (10) insert
(11) A waste collection authority is not obliged to collect household waste that is placed for collection in contravention of a requirement under this section...[Mr. Woolas.]

Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 6

Guidance on reporting
(1) The Secretary of State must publish guidance on the measurement or calculation of greenhouse gas emissions to assist the reporting by persons on such emissions from activities for which they are responsible.
(2) The guidance must be published not later than 1st October 2009.
(3) The Secretary of State may from time to time publish revisions to guidance under this section or revised guidance.
(4) Before publishing guidance under this section or revisions to it, the Secretary of State must consult the other national authorities.
(5) Guidance under this section and revisions to it may be published in such manner as the Secretary of State thinks fit..[Mr. Woolas.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Motion made, and Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:

The Committee divided: Ayes 10, Noes 4.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 7

Report on contribution of reporting to climate change objectives
(1) The Secretary of State must
(a) review the contribution that reporting on greenhouse gas emissions may make to the achievement of the objectives of Her Majestys Government in the United Kingdom in relation to climate change, and
(b) lay a report before Parliament setting out the conclusions of that review.
(2) The report must be laid before Parliament not later than 1st December 2011.
(3) In complying with this section the Secretary of State must consult the other national authorities..[Mr. Woolas.]

Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 17

Charges for single use carrier bags
(1) Schedule [Charges for single use carrier bags] makes provision about charges for single use carrier bags.
(2) In that Schedule
Part 1 confers power on the relevant national authority to make regulations about charges for single use carrier bags;
Part 2 makes provision about civil sanctions;
Part 3 makes provision about the procedures applying to regulations under the Schedule.
(3) In that Schedule the relevant national authority means
(a) the Secretary of State in relation to England;
(b) the Welsh Ministers in relation to Wales;
(c) the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland in relation to Northern Ireland.
(4) Regulations under that Schedule are subject to affirmative resolution procedure if
(a) they are the first regulations to be made by the relevant national authority in question under the Schedule,
(b) they contain provision imposing or providing for the imposition of new civil sanctions, or
(c) they amend or repeal a provision of an enactment contained in primary legislation.
(5) Otherwise regulations under that Schedule are subject to negative resolution procedure..[Joan Ruddock.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Joan Ruddock: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Peter Atkinson: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government new schedule 1Charges for single use carrier bags.
Government amendments Nos. 86 to 101

Joan Ruddock: The amendments confer power on the Secretary of State, Welsh Ministers and Northern Irish Department of the Environment to make regulations about charges for single-use carrier bags. The purpose of the amendments is to achieve a significant reduction in the number of single-use carrier bags distributed in the UK. More than 13 billion single-use carrier bags are distributed in the UK each year.

Joan Walley: At the outset of my hon. Friend moving this important new clause, will she clarify whether she is referring to bags as a whole, or whether she distinguishes between plastic bags and paper bags?

Joan Ruddock: I am delighted to be able to respond to my hon. Friend. Although I will come on to explain how the bags will be defined, they are single-use carrier bags, so there is no distinction regarding the material from which they are made. I am sure that she will know that the environmental impact of paper bags can be even more detrimental than that of plastic bagsalthough people might think that that is counter-intuitive. I am happy to explain that when challenged.

Martin Horwood: I am not necessarily challenging the Ministers assumption that environmental damage can be derived from paper bags. Nevertheless, they are made from an entirely renewable resource. In terms of their impact on the environment at disposal, although there is some release of greenhouse gas emissions when they go to landfill, if they are recycled they are surely a more environmentally friendly option than plastic bags.

Joan Ruddock: The hon. Gentleman is not correct, because the science is extremely complex in relation to that. However, I will say a number of things. On the production and transportation of paper bagswe are talking about billions of bagsthe greater the weight, the more CO2 emissions there are and so on. There is a difference between paper and plastic bags in relation to the carbon cycle. In terms of disposal, the vast majority of paper bags go to landfill, as does the vast majority of household waste. In landfill, a biodegradable item, such as a paper bag, will produce damaging methane gases, which is why this is a really complex science. It is possible to have a lower environmental impact if, for example, a paper bag is properly composted. It is impossible to say that there will be a less detrimental effect from paper bags overall because the chances are high that there will be a greater impact on the environment.

Martin Horwood: The Minister is right; if they are badly disposed of, there is potentially a greater environmental impact. However, surely we should be aiming to have a strategy of zero wastecertainly zero to landfillwhereby all paper bags are recycled. On transportation costs and weight, is she aware that the overwhelming majority of paper bags in use in the United Kingdom come from Somerset, and the overwhelming majority of plastic bags come from overseas? Therefore, I suspect that the carbon footprint may well be rather different from what she supposes. That may be why Ireland chose to make different arrangements for paper bags when it legislated on plastic bags.

Joan Ruddock: The hon. Gentleman has illustrated the fact that there needs to be a whole life cycle analysis to predict what the carbon footprint is from any item or object. He has a point, but it is not a general point. It cannot be said that paper bags would be less environmentally damaging than plastic bags.

Russell Brown: I apologise if I am telling my hon. Friend something that she already knows. Some of the colleagues of the hon. Member for Cheltenham tried to introduce a Bill in the Scottish Parliament to ban the use of plastic bags. However, as my hon. Friend was saying, it was discovered that a 40-tonne lorry would be required to transport the equivalent of one pallet of plastic bags. Therefore, the transportation alone undoubtedly has a major impact on CO2 emissions.

Joan Ruddock: My hon. Friend makes a good point.

John Gummer: The Minister mentioned the number of plastic bags that are used, which is an important figure. Will she tell the Committee what has been the reduction in the number of plastic bags since the Governments welcome initiative to work with the industry for a voluntary reduction?

Joan Ruddock: I cannot tell the right hon. Gentleman definitively, because we have not fully assessed the plastic bags agreement, which is analogous to the Courtauld agreement. However, I can give a ballpark figure: there has been a 7 to 9 per cent. reduction in the number of bags in circulation as a result of the voluntary agreement on single-use bags.

John Gummer: Later, could the Minister give the Committee a breakdown of those figures, so that we can see the way in which a large number of companies have worked with the Department voluntarily? There is a deep feeling of frustration in the industry among competing businesses, which have gone out of their way to find different mechanisms and been very successful. They have more than met the agreed targets, and been willing to do more, but the Government have introduced legislation that has left them with the feeling that this is not the co-operative plan that they had been led to believe that it would be. Out of what appears to be little more than tokenism, the Government are moving to a different scheme, which has undermined businesses belief in their willingness to work with them. It is important that the Government take what they have done seriously

Joan Ruddock: I assure the right hon. Gentleman that we have taken very seriously what has been done, and I shall describe later what has been happening. However, it would not be possible to say which companies have done what, because the agreement with the companies was that we would consider the overall picture of all participating businesses, and that we would publish all information on the overall achievement. Right hon. and hon. Members will already have heard from individual companies, which are more than entitled to, and do, make us aware of what they have achieved.
The right hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to hear that there is a huge spectrum of achievement. For example, I am told that in one company the use of raw plastic has increased during the period of the agreement, but that many others have achieved significant reductions in the use of raw plastic through lightweighting and so on. We are not yet in a position to give all the information, but as I said, companies have been contacting Committee members setting out what they have achieved, and we appreciate what they have done.
I referred to the 13 billion single-use carrier bags distributed each year. That has a direct environmental effectas a particularly visible form of litter when discarded irresponsibly, through the risk that they present to marine life, and through the emissions that they generate from both transport and waste management. Their disposable and easily substituted nature makes them an iconic symbol of our throwaway society, but as a result of public pressure, thinking right across the board has changed since we concluded the voluntary agreement with retailers. By responding to increasing concerns about the availability and numbers of throwaway bags, we hope to promote further changes in environmental behaviour and greater participation in recycling and thinking about waste among consumers.
Public attitudes are central to this debate. At the beginning of our discussions, a number of right hon. and hon. Members referred to an Ipsos MORI poll that had appeared in The Observer. It was a poll that was quite depressing to all of us, because it was headlined:
Most Britons doubt cause of climate change.
I chose to get hold of the entire poll and look at the questions asked and the answers given, and frankly that headline was very misleading. For example, one of the findings was that 77 per cent. of people expressed their concern about climate change. Furthermore, only 4 per cent. of people agreed with the statement:
Individuals should not be expected to do anything, it is not their responsibility.
So, very clearly, that was a misleading headline about a poll that is much more in line than one would have thought with the tracking that we have done as a Department over four years, during which time we have seen a very high level of concern about climate change being maintained and a willingness to do something about it.
Indeed, on 2 July there was a Guardian/ICM poll that asked:
Bearing in mind growing global economic problems on the one hand and growing environmental problems including global warming on the other, where do you think the governments main priorities should now lie?
Fofty-four per cent. of people asked said that the priority should be:
On tackling economic problems.
Fifty-two per cent. of people asked said that the priority should be:
On tackling environment issues.
Given everything that is being said about the economy at the moment, it is extraordinary that a poll conducted as recently as 2 July should give that result.

Steve Webb: Liberal Democrat Members have a lot of sympathy with tackling plastic bags. Surely, however, there is an issue here of scale, proportionality and priority. The Minister is arguing for a new schedule that adds 12 pages of legislation to a Climate Change Bill, when the issue is at least partly about litter. If the Government have legislative capacity to add 12 pages of legislation, is this issue of plastic bags really the top priority for tackling climate change? Why this rather than a whole shopping list of things that, presumably, have a bigger effect on climate change than plastic bags do?

Joan Ruddock: You would not want me, Mr. Atkinson, to list all the activities that are going on across Government in every

Steve Webb: This is legislation.

Joan Ruddock: What I was about to say to the hon. Gentleman is that legislation is not required for the myriad activities going on across the Government in every Department, which attempt to mitigate climate change, to adapt to it and to deal in the round with waste issues. So this measure is here, as indeed are the waste incentives, because a requirement exists to have legislation in this regard. We do not believe that it is very likely, although the opportunity will be there, that we will get the numbers of plastic bags down in the way that the public demand unless we make these powers available to us.
I would just like to say to the hon. Gentleman that this measure should not be a surprise; this needed to be done somewhere, because 18 months ago we published our waste strategy, in which we clearly stated that we wished to make the single-use carrier bag a thing of the past.

Steve Webb: I do not dispute for a second that the Government are doing lots of other things that do not involve legislation, but that is not the point. The question is, now that we have a Climate Change Bill, is the Minister really saying that, of all the things that require legislation, carrier bags are the most important in terms of climate change?

Joan Ruddock: I am not saying that at all. The Bill itself is making huge provision for a whole raft of policies and strategies to tackle climate change; this measure is one small addition. It is there; it may look odd to the hon. Gentleman to put it in the Bill, but it is there because it is something that we believe needs to be done and there is a requirement to legislate. However, it is not a matter of saying, This is more important. There have been many measures in this Bill that we have all properly debated, which clearly demonstrate the Governments commitment most of all to reducing carbon emissions across the whole of Government and in every aspect of our society, and also our commitment to adapting to climate change.
As was announced in the Budget, we wish to take enabling powers to require retailers to charge for single-use carrier bags. However, before these powers are exercised, we first want to give retailers the opportunity to pursue a sufficient reduction in the number of bags that they distribute on a voluntary basis. That is my response to the question put by the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal. There is in existence a voluntary agreement, which runs to the end of this year, but that was about reducing the environmental impact by 25 per cent. The environmental impact is different from just the numbers of bags.

Martin Horwood: Will the Minister expand on the 25 per cent. figure, because a large part of the impact of plastic bags is not made on climate change, but in terms of wildlife, litter and causes close to the heart of the Campaign to Protect Rural Englanda brief name-checkwith its Stop the drop campaign? In doing so, will she also pick up on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Northavon, which is that this may not be the most important consideration in relation to climate change?

Joan Ruddock: Let me also name-check CPRE. I supported the Stop the drop campaign and I am working closely with the CPRE, which is promoting it.
Let me give the hon. Member for Cheltenham the figures. Plastic bags comprise between 0.1 per cent. and 1 per cent. of visible litter in the UK, 2 per cent. of total litter on UK beaches, which is substantial, and 0.3 per cent. of the domestic waste stream. Yes, those are visible, cause concern and need dealing with, and how better to deal with them than to reduce the circulation in the first place? Whatever the spectrum of reasons, plastic bags have environmental impacts associated with their disposal and produce emissions and are therefore relevant to climate change. However, other issues are involved. I do not dispute what the hon. Gentleman says. But plastic bags are important in respect of those other areas. We are getting more gain, potentially, than just simply that relating to climate changeand an important gain it is, because although plastic bags comprise quite a small percentage in terms of overall litter, they are so visible. When seeing those bags up in the trees, in the hedgerows and on the railway tracks, it makes a big impact and we want to see it ended. [Interruption.] I am reminded of something that might be helpful to the hon. Gentleman. In our partial impact assessment, single-use carrier bags were responsible for an estimated 790,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalents each year. Again, that has an important climate change impact.
Let me give the Committee an idea of what might be achieved. At least a 70 per cent. reduction in the numbers of single-use bags distributed could be achieved if a charge were introduced. The Government are prepared to impose a charge if a similar reduction cannot be achieved through voluntary action by retailers. The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal suggested that we were being unfair to retailers and that some were hurt and disappointed by what they perceive as a change. First, this is not a change: the proposal to bring about the end of the single-use carrier bag was included in the waste strategy 2007. I think he will acknowledge that, whereas public opinion has become vociferous and concerned about the numbersthey want them done away withat the same time a number of other countries have ended the use of these bags, not least China, where the vast majority of such bags were being produced. If other countries are doing it and the public demand is there, it is appropriate for the Government to respond. We have tried to explain to retailers that the argument has moved on: it is not a lack of appreciation for what they have achieved. Of course, we have learned a great deal from what they have achieved about ways in which we can reduce packaging.
The Government are prepared to impose a charge if we cannot achieve what we hope to achieve through voluntary action by retailers. The new clause would introduce a new schedule conferring powers on the relevant national authoritiescovering England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but not Scotland, as requested by the respective devolved Administrationsto make regulations about charges for single-use carrier bags. The specific powers are contained in the new schedule, which is split into three parts: powers to require a charge for bags, powers to create civil sanctions in respect of sellers who breach such regulations, and procedural matters. This is new material and part 1 of the new schedule provides powers to make regulations about charging for the supply of single-use carrier bags. Those regulations will require sellers of goods to charge for single-use carrier bags supplied either at the place where they are sold, or for the purpose of delivering goods. The measures will define sellers of goods and a single-use carrier bag, specify the minimum amount that sellers must charge for each single-use bag, appoint an administrator to administer the provisions made by the regulations, and confer appropriate powers and duties on them, including enforcement powers and duties. It will require records to be kept of the amounts raised by the charge, and the uses to which proceeds are put.
Obviously, we will consult formally on those points prior to the introduction of secondary legislation. The first set of regulations will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. Part 2 of the new schedule contains provisions about civil sanctions. They follow the model used in the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill. Of the sanctions in that Bill, we propose only fixed monetary penalties, variable monetary penalties and compliance notices. Administrators will be able to choose which sanction is applied on a case-by-case basis.
We are not creating any criminal offences and have proposed that any fixed penalty fines for breaches of the proposed bags regulations be kept to a maximum of £5,000. There is, however, provision to require retailers to publicise the fact that they have breached the regulations. Part 3 of the new schedule provides for the regulations to be made either by a single national authority, or by two or more national authorities as joint regulations.

Martin Horwood: As I understand it, part 3 disapplies the hybrid procedures that would allow parties named in legislation to make representations in relation to it. I do not speak on behalf of any retailers that might be affected, but surely if an individual retailer is named in legislation, they should have the right to make representations in the normal way on that kind of legislation or regulation.

Joan Ruddock: I confirm that the hybrid procedures to any draft regulations made under the powers contained in the new schedule will be disapplied, as we provide for the power to name specific retailers who will be subject to the charge. The same approach is taken in relation to the waste reduction scheme provisions, which we discussed with the hon. Member for Vale of York, and the retailers so named will be able to make representations.
Amendments Nos. 86 to 101 are consequential to the new clause and schedule. By bringing forward the amendments, the Government are responding to strong public demands for action on single-use carrier bags. Those enabling powers will provide a powerful lever in our continuing efforts to phase out single-use carrier bags in favour of longer-lasting, more sustainable alternatives.

Gregory Barker: We agree with the Government that single-use plastic bags are a scourge on the landscape of our country. On a trip through the countryside, there are few things more infuriating to see than plastic bags blighting the landscape and stuck in our hedgerows and trees. The single-use carrier bag has become an icon of our throwaway society. They cause extensive environmental damage, endanger our wildlife and pollute our seas and waterways. As the Minister said, this country uses over 3 billion single-use carrier bags each year.

Joan Ruddock: It is 13 billion.

Gregory Barker: I am sorry, 13 billionthat is over 500 bags a year for every household in Britain. Action is needed to reduce that figure. I must ask the Minister why, as already raised, the Government feel it necessary to include regulations for what is, in effect, a litter prevention initiative in a Bill that is about serious carbon reduction. Much of the evidence shows that there is little if any carbon reduction benefitcertainly in the grand scheme of thingsfrom introducing such a charge. In the legislative precedent, set in the Republic of Ireland, there was never any suggestion that the policy was related to climate change. It was only ever mooted as a desirable litter prevention policyan extremely successful one it has been too.
Opposition members of the Committee have made the point at several stages throughout the debates that the Climate Change Bill is a framework document, a big-picture piece of ambitious policy making. The Bill is about the future of our planet and the sustainability of humankind. It seems inappropriate to us to be introducing a micro-measure, such as the enabling powers, into the Bill, particularly when those powers will have no discernable impact on our overall carbon reduction. While we are certainly in favour of the new clause in principle, we question how appropriate it is to this particular piece of legislation. Dare I say it, I cannot help suspecting that a modicum of political posturing from the Government is involved here. However, I hope that the Minister can persuade me otherwise, as we are intent on supporting the aspirations of the new clause.
There are a few other areas where I would appreciate the Ministers clarification about the new schedule. One issue is the voluntary agreements. Hon. Members know that my party believes in the necessity of keeping regulation to an absolute minimum. That is why we were pleased to see the Government engage positively with the retail industry, through WRAP, to agree a voluntary agreement to cut the environmental impact of single-use carrier bags by 25 per cent. by the end of 2008. The Prime Minister then said, in a speech last November, that
the Climate Change Bill will legislate so that, if there is not sufficient progress on a voluntary basis by the end of the year
2008
the Government can exercise powers early next year to impose a charge on these bags.
Can the Minister please tell me how the Government define sufficient progress? The reports I have received from the retail associations involved seem to describe significant progress. The British Retail Consortium stated that
provisional figures released by WRAP in February 2008 showed that retailers gave out a billion less bags compared to this time last year and had already reduced the environmental impact of plastic bags by 14 per cent.
Does the Minister not consider that to be sufficient progress from the retailers towards meeting the voluntary commitment? Are there any definitive targets that constitute that sufficient progress that the Prime Minister mentioned? If the only definitive target is a 15 per cent. reduction, does that mean that the enabling powers in new schedule 1 will not be used if the voluntary agreement is met? Some clarification from the Minister would be welcome, as my partys belief is that, if Government enter into an agreement with a business sector and if that sector is on course to meet the requirements of the agreement, it is not good for the reputation of government to renege on that agreement for what could be perceived as reasons of short-term political grandstanding.
Another issue that greatly concerns us, which the Minister did not really go into in any detail, is the hypothecation of funds, particularly in the new schedule. What will happen to the revenues raised by the bag levy? Should it be introduced, the Prime Minister made it clear in his speech last November that any money raised would go to environmental charities. Yet I do not see any reference to hypothecation of the bag levy in the Governments new clauses. Can the Minister assure me that the Prime Ministers statement will be honoured? We have already discussed the public distrust that exists around green taxes. Sadly, it seems that the levy is slipping in that direction. We must do all we can, in the interests of encouraging positive public engagement with environmental issues, so that we do not give people any grounds for suspicion that the Government are yet again using a tax, the bag levy, as yet another means of stealth tax.
It is worth noting that Marks and Spencer, which introduced voluntarily a 5p plastic bag levy in its food stores nationwide in February, is donating all revenues from that levy to the environmental charity Groundwork, with which many members of the Committee will be familiar. It does excellent work. It creates and improves green living spaces such as parks and gardens in neighbourhoods, especially deprived neighbourhoods, throughout the United Kingdom. Can the Minister assure me that the levy will be truly green, not another revenue-raising initiativehowever smallfrom a cash-strapped Treasury?
Another issue that concerns me greatly is the ruling out of price absorption. There is not a stipulation under the new clause that would prevent large retailers from absorbing the single-use bag levy into their costs to prevent customers from having to pay it. That would, in effect, make the levy a new Government tax on retailers with no guaranteed environmental spend. If retailers could do that, it would give the big playersespecially the larger supermarketsan unfair advantage over their smaller and independent competitors, which would be far less capable financially of absorbing such a new cost. It would also negate entirely the purpose of the levy, which is to encourage behavioural change in the buying public. Can the Minister please clarify that it will not be possible for retailers, large or small, to absorb the cost of that levy?
I return to paper bag exemption. The Government have considered whether the levy should apply to paper bags as well as to plastic. As we are discussing a litter prevention policy not a carbon policy, is it not the case that paper bags biodegrade and do not pollute as plastic bags do? It is interesting to note that the levy on plastic bags in Ireland did not result in a rush to use paper. Instead, people have moved to reusable cloth bags. I should like to hear the Ministers views on whether there is a necessity for exempting paper bags on the grounds that they provide a service without the environmental externality of plastic. With those concerns in mind, we are inclined to support the new clause and hope that we can halt the appalling sight of plastic bags littering our cities, towns and countryside, but we await with interest her response to our very real worries.

Peter Atkinson: Order. I will suspend the sitting for five minutes.

Sitting suspended.

On resuming

Steve Webb: The Liberal Democrats have an established party policy in favour of a levy on plastic bags, which was passed at our conference some years ago. We are broadly sympathetic with the new clause, new schedule and Government amendments and will not seek to obstruct them.
However, before the Committee approves the new measures, we should be slightly clearer about exactly what we are voting for. This is not exactly a pig in a plastic bag but it is something of that sort, because a great deal of detail still has to be established. I accept that the Minister says that we will pass primary legislation, that there will then be consultation and secondary legislation, and that we will have to return to some of the issues, but it would be helpful to know now what the Government are thinking about some of them.
My understanding of the principle is that there will be no requirement to place a levy if there is sufficient voluntary reductionI believe that that was the phrase that the Minister used. She mentioned a 25 per cent. figure, but it would be interesting to know whether the Government are now clear in their own mind how much progress must be made, over what time scale, and whether it will be reviewed annuallythe whole mechanism. How much is enough? I would hope that enough would be an ambitious target.
We have already heard about Ireland and other places where the reductions have been dramatic and fast. I hope that the Minister will set the bar high because if we are going to go through the process of putting the infrastructure in place, we might as well ensure that we get bang for our buck. I hope that the Minister will give us some idea of the Governments thinking on charges.
The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle said that there was an issue about the use of revenue. The Bill is not explicit about what the use of the revenue would be. I am also slightly unclear about the funding flow. Presumably, there will be lots of people levying the charges. Do they all hand over the money to some sort of clearing house that then gives out grants or something? It is not clear how this will work. Having been required to make a charge, it would seem a bit odd if the individual companies were allowed to pick and choose their good causes. Again, the measure is a bit hazy and I do not know how it will work. Some further clarification would be helpful.
The coverage of the levy is unclear, but perhaps the Government have not yet made a decision. For example, my village shop issues carrier bags and I am not sure whether the Government have a de minimis threshold in mind. Clearly, the village shops carrier bags are as littering as everyone elses. However, if my village shop had to keep a register of how many carrier bags it had handed out and how many 5ps it had charged customers, and if it would have to send in accounts on a form to DEFRA, it would make me wonder about the relative costs and benefits of the proposal. Is the measure aimed at the big supermarkets? Do the Government know where the cut-off point is? Those are very important questions.
I welcome the fact that the new schedule refers not only to carrier bags handed out in shops, but bags profligately used for home delivery. It is very important that those bags are within the scope of the legislation.
Although I agree with the basic approach, I have sneaking reservations about the switch from a voluntary to a statutory strategy. It is perfectly legitimate to try to do this on a voluntary basis. There is also a credible argument for saying, Let us just get on with it and make it happen. However, I am not sure about trying a voluntary approach, and then revoking it early on. When we intervened on the Minister to ask how the voluntary approach was working, she said that she had some ballpark figures. However, although she did not seem to have much idea, the decision to revoke the voluntary approach and put some stick in was taken months ago. Therefore, long before the Government knew how the voluntary approach was getting onthey cannot have had hard data on it months agothey decided to go for a statutory approach.
As the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal said, the only thing that can be assumed is that the Government were responding to newspaper pressure. While the Daily Mail has its merits, it should not be determining the law of the land in the way in which it seems to have done in this case. We did not intervene on the Minister to say that we do not think that action needs to be taken in this area. Clearly there is a case for action, as our party advocated some years before the Daily Mail. The concern is that we have either a big picture climate change Bill that is strategic and sets frameworks, or we have a systematic strategy of specific legislation to tackle big climate change issues. It seems to me that with this Bill we have neither fish nor foul. We have what is supposed to be a measure to establish global targets for decades to come, and then it addresses bin taxes and plastic bags. The worry is that we do not have the strategic approach from Government telling us where our legislative priorities are and where the big climate change impact isthe bang for our buck. We just have responses to the flavour of the moment. That does not seem to be a wholly satisfactory basis on which to legislate.
We have the Bill in front of us and we have got to form an opinion. Our judgment is that these powers need to be available. We hope that the bar will be set high so that we can be confident that drastic reductions in the numbers of plastic bags, which are clearly possible, as other countries have shown, will be achieved in this country.

John Gummer: Again, I would like to refer to my entry in the Register of Members Interests, not least because I chair a company that deals with a high proportion of requirements under packaging legislation. We have also advised a number of companies on how best to fulfil what I believe is the corporate responsibility to reduce the amount of waste that we use in this country.
Like other people, I am perfectly happy to say that we must do something about the nature of the society in which we live. This is a throw-away society, and we have gone through a period of time in which we have contravened all the rules that were previously part of our nature. We always used to refer to waste not, want not and I hear that idea coming back in relation to the Prime Ministers comments.
We always thought that people went shopping with a shopping bag, put the items in there and came back with them. That idea was thrown away because people thought it was terribly old-fashioned, but we have returned to seeing the value of that approach. I feel it is a much healthier society that takes the view that wastage is of itself wrong and damaging to the environment. I do not want to be in any way critical of the principles that lie behind the measure, but I still find the presence of this aspect of the Bill very difficult to accept. It is as if we are at some fantastic liturgy where everything is leading up to the great moment in which we really show the centre of what we are going to depend on for the rest of our lives, and then just as we come to the end, somebody gets up and says, Id just like to announce that therell be tea after the service in the parish roomssomehow or other that is not actually the best bit. I do not think that the Minister for the Environment is terribly happy with this addition to his important Bill.
The Minister and the Under-Secretary will no doubt deny this, but I have a feeling that they believe the Bill is about something bigger and that the measure is merely a convenient thing to put on the end. The measure is no more about climate change than a whole lot of other things. Of course, it contributes to the battle, but it is largely about litter and a new attitude to waste, with which most of us agree. It is therefore not something that I wish to destroy. However, in the whole battle against climate change, there is a need to elevate the issue so that people recognise that dealing with it demands something very considerable of us and is not merely a matter of bits and pieces.
Secondly, I have a concern about the distinction between our argument about how terribly important it is to give large businesses time to work out how they will measure their carbon footprint and how, after we have had a few months of a voluntary agreement, we immediately have to bring in a system to clobber them because we are not sure that they are going to deliver. In addition, we do not know in detail what has been done. There is a certain contrast between those two things. Does that have anything to do with the way in which the public view has been both influencing the press and influenced by the press?
That leads me to the third point. I am sorry that this bit about plastic and paper bags is so limited because I would have thought that this was the moment to push the boundaries. It is interesting that many of the newspapers that are keen on taxing plastic bags are themselves delivered in a plastic bag. Why have we not extended the measure to cover that? What about saying that the legislation should apply to a wide range of uses of plastic that manifestly contribute to litter and add to greenhouse gases?
I think, too, of the packets in which parliamentary papers are sent outthey no longer come in what was rather better packaging, but in plastic, which seems largely unnecessary. I do not know whether you have noticed, Mr. Atkinson, but in the old days, the bound volumes of parliamentary reports came in very useful boxes, in which most of my back papers are now filed. Somebody somewhere, without any discussion with anyone, decided that the parliamentary reports would be packaged differently, which has had two results: first, they come damaged; and, secondly, the packaging cannot be reused, which is a more important mechanism than recycling. I am sorry that that has happened, because I like to apply rules to ourselves first.

Anne Snelgrove: Is the right hon. Gentleman talking about the 19th or the 20th century?

John Gummer: Perhaps the hon. Lady, who has so far voted against her conscience on a number of issues, could be a little more serious. During the short time that she has been, and will be, in Parliament[Hon. Members: Ooh!] Well, we have had a good conversation so far, but I do not think that her intervention was a very useful contribution. Our bound papers used to be delivered in perfectly reasonable boxes that we could reuse, but about nine months ago, there was a change to a new form of packaging that we cannot use again. We now have to throw it away, or at least recycle it, which is a pity. For those of us who try to address matters of recycling, that is just another complicated issue.
Above all, it is very dangerous for the Government to base legislation on a popular, but possibly momentary, concern. The measure would send out a warning, but I am not sure that when enacted it will prove to be so popular. It is the sort of legislation that people are keen on only for as long as it does not actually happenattitudes are always different before something actually happens. The Government should do one of two things: take no action, which I think would be wrong, or, preferably, say, We will make this our own. We will not simply respond to a newspaper campaign, but establish a basis for a much wider view of how to reduce waste in packaging.
Reducing waste in many parts of the packaging industry is a real operation. I declared an interest in this matter, and Valpak is very concerned about reducing the creation of packaging in the first place, which is what we try to do. However, we are not moving fast enough in certain areas where the Government might have provided some encouragement. I have given a couple of examples already: the increased use of unnecessary plastic packaging around other things simply because it happens to be convenient for the distribution of newspapers and the like, and the question of whether we ought to be using as many plastic coverings for materials that were previously covered in more easily recycled materials.
I see no indication in the new clause that those issues have been considered or that legislative opportunities have been taken to give powers to the Government to intervene. I am sorry that that opportunity has been missed. The Government ought to think very seriously about how to bring together the voluntary and the compulsory, and I think that the hon. Member for Northavon was on to something when he sought to distinguish between them. There is no doubt that some of the companies that have sought voluntarily to reduce the number of bags that they use have found it an interesting and valuable way of coming together with their customers and talking seriously about the issuesit has been a point of contact. The effect is that the whole concept of the collection of material for recycling and waste and such like has become important.
Reports from checkout girls and boys, store managers and others have been interesting, and that is true across most of the retail trade. The situation is different for different kinds of products. Interestingly, the stories that one hears from the suppliers of clothes are different from those from grocery suppliers. In all cases, however, there appears to be a real advantage in there being a degree of voluntarism because it might have a longer effect upon peoples general method of treating waste. We need to change attitudes, and doing that on a slightly longer trajectory might mean that more peoples attitudes will be changed for a longer time. I beg the Under-Secretary to make sure that in any change that she or her successors seek to make, serious consideration is given to not just the size of the reduction in the number of bags, but how much we have used that reduction to change habits and attitudes. Taking a bit longer might have a more lasting and broader effect than the immediate impact of getting rid of the one-trip plastic bag.
Lastly, I commend those companies that have produced a wonderful business in providing bags for life, which has much enlivened the differences between them. I have much enjoyed the reasonably good-hearted jokes as each of the supermarket chains has sought to show that its bags are better than those of the others. They have done all sorts of things to get at the bags of others. It seems that, in general, that has had a thoroughly good effect upon the manners and attitudes of shoppers.
I hope that we will ensure that, in so far as we can, we get the voluntary system to do as much as it can, because I suspect that it is changing more attitudes than almost anything else that we have done for some time. It might need to go on for a bit before we intervene to ensure that we get the full result, which, probably, we will not get without the use of some of the powers that the Minister has put forward today.

Joan Ruddock: I seem to have an enormous number of questions to respond to, and I will try to do so as succinctly as I can. I was grateful for the support given by all those who have spoken, although they have given a critique of proposals. The general principle is well supported and we are delighted to have that support.
I begin with the issue of whether this is a litter scheme or a climate change scheme. I have made it clear that the scheme will have a number of positive results, if we able to achieve what we seek to achieve, but it is rooted in climate change. We are dealing with significant emissions, and that is why this is in the Bill. The Irish law was based on litterthat was the rationale. Ireland was trying to get rid of bags for litter reasons, not other reasons. That was why there was a lot of substitution of paper for plastic.

Gregory Barker: Will the Minister quantify what the CO2 reduction would be as a result of that measure?

Joan Ruddock: As a result of which measure?

Gregory Barker: If the plastic bag reduction target is met, either by voluntary agreement or, if necessary, by the mandatory mechanism, what would be the CO2 impact?

Joan Ruddock: I gave the Committee that figure earlier. I cannot calculate the result of a reduction, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that our impact assessment found that single-use carrier bags were responsible for an estimated 790,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent each year. The other issue is what happens each year. Because the bags are thrown away, we have to produce more and more. That is important, and reducing the number of them will have valuable and welcome effects.
We were accused by the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle of political posturing, and other members of the Committee suggested that we were responding to the agenda of the Daily Mail. Let me reiterate that the pledge to make single-use carrier bags a thing of the past was in the waste strategy for 2007. The Prime Minister also made the announcement last year, so when the Daily Mail set out with its campaign against what it termed plastic bags as opposed to all bags, it was responding to what the Government had said very clearly that they planned to do and something that the Prime Minister had already announced. We very much welcomed the campaign. We always welcome media support for our initiatives on both climate change and waste.

David Maclean: The Minister is responding to the campaign on plastic bags in the Daily Mail or The Mail on Sunday. Does the power in the Bill permit us to take action against all the rubbish CDs and DVDs that we receive from those newspapers, too?

Joan Ruddock: I am very, very sympathetic to what the right hon. Gentleman says. Most of us in the room would probably not have time to make use of those CDs, even if we had the inclination.

Phil Woolas: They do not even work.

Joan Ruddock: My hon. Friend has obviously tried them. Well, I do not know about that because I have not tried any. There is a facility within DEFRA for recycling CDs.
In response to what the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal said about the House authorities, I agree that there is much that they ought to be doing to improve recycling rates and to reduce waste. I hope that we can join in a campaign to that end.

Anne McIntosh: Will the Minister give way?

Joan Ruddock: I am happy to give way, but I am worried that members of the Committee will be here literally until midnight if I go on like this.

Anne McIntosh: The hon. Lady said that the Governments calculations show that they would save 790,000 tonnes of CO2.
Joan Ruddockindicated dissent.

Anne McIntosh: The briefing note supplied to the Committee stated that 790,000 tonnes of CO2 will be saved on the basis that the current bags are made entirely of primary plastic with fossil energy sources. Most plastic bags used by the majority of supermarkets are now biodegradable.

Joan Ruddock: I do not think that the hon. Lady is correct on that point, but I will have to take advice because I am not certain. The impact assessment had said that that was the current cost in CO2 equivalent of the use of 13 billion bags. If there was a reduction of 70 per cent. in the number of bags, the actual carbon reduction would be in the order of 553,000 tonnes. We cannot dispute that. It is the order of magnitude that we are talking about, and that is the calculation made in the impact assessment.
The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle said that 1 billion fewer bags had been put into circulation by the major retailers that were part of the voluntary agreement. He is correct. We believe that it is of that order. However, if the achievement in a year is a reduction of 1 billionwe have 12 billion bags left in circulationand that progress is maintained, it will take 12 years to make the bags a thing of the past.
I want to emphasise that we have appreciated the commitment made by retailers for the 25 per cent. reduction in environmental impact. Much has been learned from that work that is relevant to other forms of packagingparticularly in the light-weighting with the use of raw materials, the greater recycling and so on. It has been an extremely valuable exercise, with the reduction of a billion bags. However, as I said earlier, times have changed and we now believe that it is not just about environmental impact of that nature; we have to do much more. The agreement continues to run until the end of the year, and if retailers now apply themselves to numbers of bagsas many of them areand they are able to achieve the substantial reductions that we seek, there would be no need to introduce the secondary legislation, which would take this primary legislation forward and create the effect.
I was asked by a number of hon. Members about the substantial reduction that we seek. We are guided by two things The first is the situation in Ireland, where there was a 90 per cent. reduction in the number of plastic bags. As I said, there was substitution. There has not been a complete analysis by the Irish Government so we are not able to obtain much more detailed information. Nearer to home, the best example that we have is Marks and Spencer, which now charges 5p a bag throughout its stores, big and small. It has already achieved a 70 per cent. reduction. So 70 per cent. seems to be the bottom line. We would hope for morewe would like to be ambitiousbut if we think of that as a substantial reduction, it is clear that that is going to take us well beyond where the current voluntary agreement has taken us.
The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle said that there was nothing to indicate the hypothecation of the bag charges and asked what would happen to the moneys. He cited Marks and Spencer, which has given all the proceeds from the sale of bags to Groundwork. Obviously, retailers absorb the cost of the bags that they produce and distribute. Under the legislation, that would stop. If introduced in secondary legislation, there would be an absolute obligation on the retailer to charge for each bag at the point of sale. There is no question of them absorbing the cost or of the levy. They cannot do that, but must clearly act in that way.
The hon. Gentleman asked who was going to benefit and if it was just another revenue-raising initiative, implying that the Government were in need of revenue. However, the Government will not touch a single penny of the moneys raised by the charges on carrier bags. We would hope that the retailers would not wish to pick up the money that they raised by selling the bags, although they would clearly be entitled to do so. We seek to ensure that they do not give away, for free, those single-use bags. The retailers would have to charge, but, theoretically, they could keep the money. We, who know those retailers well and work with them consistently, believe that they are most likelyfor customer satisfaction and dialogueto want to see those moneys go to environmental causes. The hon. Member for Northavon asked why retailers should be able decide on anything at all. The retailers are now in constant dialogue with their customers about behaviour change and the environmenta point made by the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal. If the measure should come to pass, it is most likely that they would want to consult their customers about which environmental charities they would like to support. I would not be at all surprised if they did.

Steve Webb: Is the Minister satisfied that the version of the scheme that she describedwhere the companies can keep the moneyis compatible with public assurances given in the past by senior Ministers about the scheme?

Joan Ruddock: I am absolutely satisfied. That is desirable and is what we think will happen. We have made provisions for separate accounting. Should the measure go through, retailers will have to account and keep records on the proceeds of the sale of bags. That is a means of transparency and will enable customers to see how much revenue has been raised for the company through the sale of bags. The chances are that that will benefit environmental charities. The Government do not need to go further, and obviously we will not legislate to make that happen.

John Gummer: Will the Minister take the opportunity of returning to the Treasury and reminding it that it stole a great deal of money from the levy on the landfill tax that used to go to charity? It increased the rate, although there had been no original intention to do that, and perhaps the Minister could ask whether it would like to do exactly the same as it did before. That is why people were suspicious of what was said.
Secondly, will the Minister guarantee that this tax will not be reclaimed at some time in the future? I would not expect that from her, but the present Government did exactly that with the landfill levy, which was originally designed so that people could avoid the tax if they used the money directly for environmental purposes. A large number of environmental organisations lost out significantly when that was changed.

Joan Ruddock: The right hon. Gentleman is clearly talking about a taxmonies that would normally be taken in by the Exchequer or could be excused by it. This is not the same. The Government are not involved in getting their hands on this money. They do not seek that and have no reason to want to do so in the future. This is a charge made by retailers, who will be responsible for accounting for it and explaining what they have done.
If this policy is successfuland we would not introduce it unless we had good grounds for believing that it will bethe moneys will disappear quickly.

David Maclean: I do not believe that the Government will get their hands on the money. I am a cynical old git and believe that supermarkets and multinationals will keep every penny. I will apologise to Marks and Spencer tomorrow if it currently ensures that the money goes to charity. I would like the Government to put all our retailers under maximum embarrassment and pressure if they do not use the money for other purposes. I am fed up with going to stay in hotelsoccasionallyand finding notices all over my towels telling me that 20 billion towels are unnecessarily washed every day, that the hotel believes in saving the planet and therefore it will not wash my towels. I always go to the reception and ask how much I will get off my bill for having to bathe with a dirty towel and what the hotel is doing with the money that it saves.
It is all very well haranguing us, and telling us that the world will be saved by charging for plastic bags or not washing towels, but what happens to the money? Is it invested in the environment, the rain forests perhaps?

Joan Ruddock: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman must shop at one or other of the supermarkets. Should this measure come about, I suggest that he makes immediate representation to see that the moneys raised go to the rain forests. That would be a great public service, and I am sure that he will get a sympathetic hearing.
The hon. Member for Northavon asked me a raft of questions about transparency, records and what individual companies could do with the money, many of which I have covered already. He raised the question of his village shop and that is very important because the Government have no wish to see the small village shop burdened by new regulation. Of the 13 billion bags in circulation every year, 11 billion are produced by the major supermarkets. We need to catch the major supermarkets in the legislation, along with other significant retailers, but we do not wish to cause problems for the village shop, and the hon. Gentleman may be reassured about that.

Steve Webb: I am greatly reassured by that.
I want to return to where the money goes, and I have the 2008 Budget speech in front of me. The Chancellor said that legislation could come into force in 2009 and could lead to a 90 per cent. reduction. He then said:
The money raised should go to environmental charities.[Official Report, 12 March 2008; Vol. 473, c. 296.]
Anyone who listened to that speech will have assumed that that was where the money would go. How is that consistent with the Minister saying that companies may do what they like with the money?

Joan Ruddock: I think should means that it is an aspiration. If the Chancellor had said would, the matter would be rather different. It is entirely consistent to say that that is where we think the money should go. The Chancellor was expressing that aspiration.
The hon. Gentleman spoke about the profligate used of bags in home delivery, and we agree with him, which is why we drafted the clauses as we did. I believe that I have responded to everything that he asked, but if I have not, he can jump up. Looking at all the questions I recorded, I believe that I have dealt with them.
The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal spoke about bringing together voluntary and statutory arrangements, how important the process is to retailers and their customers, and the point of contact. I could not agree with him more. It is incredibly valuable, and we can all praise our retailers for the way in which they have engaged and educated their customers about waste. The fact that they have achieved so much does not mean that there is not even more to be done. We will continue to talk to them about changing their customers behaviour, and considering their own behaviour. Food waste has been a prevalent issue this week, and we need to talk to them about the amount of waste that is going out of the back of supermarkets, as well as that which is going into customers bags. There is much to be done, but good work has been done.
The right hon. Gentleman spoke about plastic bags around newspapers, and I agree with him. We are in dialogue with the newspaper industry and direct mail organisations, and there is more work to be done.
The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that we should consider a reduction in packaging waste generally. The Committee will have heard my earlier slip of the tongue when I referred to this as Courtauld, but the Courtauld agreement covers packaging and packaging waste. Its members, who cover the vast majority of the grocery chains, have agreed that the growth in packaging waste will be ended this year. They have committed themselves to that, and to actual reductions by 2010. I shall be meeting them in the near future to assess what progress has been made. We believe that much more must be done. I have increased the recycling rates this year for packaging waste, and we will continue to keep that very much in our focus. Little else so annoys the public beyond plastic bags than packaging in general.
Finally, the hon. Member for Northavon and the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal referred to what they believe is the global vision in the Bill, and I shall respond to their criticism about involving this measure alongside that huge vision. None of us wants to diminish that vision. We are deeply proud of the fact that we are the first country in the world to give ourselves this target for reduction, mitigation and adaptation, and nothing should take away from that. However, the fact is that 40 per cent. of our CO2 emissions come from the actions of individuals. If we are to persuade the public to work with us on the great vision and the global agenda, we must enable them to do what they can most easily do, and we must respond to what they say to us. They say that they want the Government to lead and to facilitate measures that can be taken, They also say that they want rid of single-use bags. It is appropriate for us to respond to that.
I hope that I have responded to all the questions that were raised.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause read a second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 8

Reporting on greenhouse gas emissions by Export Credits Guarantee Department
(1) The Export and Investment Guarantees Act 1991 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 7 after subsection (1) insert
(1A) The annual report shall include an assessment of the direct and indirect contribution of greenhouse gases to the climate from those projects falling into Category A, High Potential Impact or Category B, Medium Potential Impact of the Export Credits Guarantee Department Case Impact Analysis Process for which arrangements were entered pursuant to sections 1, 2 or 3 in that year..[Mr. Hurd.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Nick Hurd: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I shall be brief, both because I know that the Committee is keen to get on and because events have unfolded in respect of the Governments response to the new clause since it was tabled. The new clause, which was tabled in my name, has distinguished cross-party support, including from an ex-Labour climate change Minister. Our short debate will take us back to the issue of disclosure.
We spoke at length about the need, or otherwise, for large British companies to disclose their emissions. The new clause would extend that principle to the public sector, which should be a beacon of best practice. The new clause focuses on one particular Government agency: the Export Credits Guarantee Department.
Most of us recognise that the ECGD plays an extremely important economic role in facilitating UK exports. Over the past five years, it has supported more than £12.5 billion of UK exports. No one would underestimate the importance of its role to the economy in underwriting risks that others are not prepared to underwrite. However, a growing number of people in this House and outside, most notably the WWF, are concerned that the process that the agency works to has inadequate transparency and accountability.
The ECGD has been allowed to operate in a way that is semi-detached from the Government, and it is not entirely in tune with the priorities that the Government attach to the environment and the battle against climate change. For some months, we have been campaigning to reform this important agency and to drag it out of the shadows so that it more effectively considers its impact on the environment.
The agency is not particularly big, when measured in terms of the number of people who work for it, but it has tremendous clout, particularly when it is connected to other export credit agencies around the world. The annual value of capital goods that are exported with finance from the club of OECD-based ECAs is estimated to be between £30 billion and £40 billion. The 2003 report on the agency by the Environmental Audit Committee, which first expressed concerns about the degree to which the agency supports and is seen to support the Governments agenda on the environment, noted that some 10 per cent. of exports from large industrialised economies are facilitated by ECAs.
A non-governmental organisation calledbelieve it or notECA Watch has estimated that, worldwide, ECAs support twice the number of oil, gas and mining projects as all the multilateral development banks combined, and half of all new greenhouse gas emitting industrial projects in developing countries have some form of ECA support. The point that I am trying to make is that we should not think of the issue in terms of one relatively small Government agency. The agency has real power to drive change, especially if it is seen to take a lead on the way in which ECAs around the world work.
The underlying issue is that to date the ECGD business book, if we can call it that, has been focused on carbon-intensive industries. To give that some context, defence and carbon-intensive industries, including aerospace and fossil fuel developments, typically make up more than 75 per cent. of ECGDs customers.
The problem is that the evidence accumulated by WWF and others suggests that there are inadequate processes within the ECGD regarding the rules for assessing projects for their impact on the environment. When rules exist, their application appears to be discretionary, and more than half the business is focused on defence and aerospace, for which no such rules exist. Surely it is time, given the context of a Government who take great pride in their leadership on climate change and the importance that they attach to the climate change agenda, that the agency is brought up to date and seen to be consistent with the Governments priorities elsewhere.
We are pressing for reform of the agency. In parallel with this Committees deliberations, the Environmental Audit Committee has launched a second inquiry into the agency to explore some of the concerns that have been expressed. We have campaigned for amending the Export and Investment Guarantees Act 1991 so that governance of this agency is reviewed and reformed, and to give it the requirement to have a more explicit regard for climate change in how it does business and in the processes by which it makes decisions.
The ECGD should have its own targets, as other agencies do, and it should be leading the shift towards low-carbon finance, rather than continuing to be so heavily weighted towards financing carbon-intensive industries. Frankly, I am sure that the Minister will share my surprise that a £50 million fund that is ring-fenced within the ECGD to facilitate investment in the export of low-carbon technologies has not been deployed at all. As far as I understand it, only about 2 per cent. of the business book of the ECGD is focused on what we might call new technologies. That seems to be a wasted opportunity in the context of a British Government who are seeking to position the British economy as a leader in the low-carbon future. We need everyone to pull in the same direction.
Finally, and this point is most relevant to the new clause, the agency should be transparent and should disclose the emissions that result from the decisions that it makes. There seems to be little practical argument against that because the agency has confirmed to me that it collects the data from what it calls the high-impact projects that it facilitates, and there appears to be no practical difficulty in collecting the data from the medium-impact projects.
What we are asking for goes with the grain of what seems to be happening in the international market, with OPEC and ECOSIM, which I know are slightly different from the ECGD, apparently disclosing the details of emissions that result from their decisions. There really seems to be no practical argument against disclosure.
I am delighted to hear, although I have yet to see the hard proof, that we are pushing on an open door in this context, because I understand that the Government accept the principle of the new clause, but they prefer not to action its intention through amendments to the Bill. Instead, they would prefer to make the change in a different way. I am thus being asked to take things on trust, pending what I understand to be an imminent announcement from a Minister, perhaps next week. I will listen to the Ministers response very carefully.

Gregory Barker: In the interests of brevity, I do not intend to repeat the arguments that my hon. Friend has powerfully made. I will simply reiterate that the ECGD wields a power and influence that is well above its level of financing for private sector projects. Ignoring the effects of carbon-polluting activities that are directly supported by the UK Government fundamentally undermines the rationale of establishing a climate Bill to reduce the contribution of the UK to global man-made climate change. I thus wholeheartedly endorse my hon. Friends comments.

John Gummer: Will my hon. Friend ensure that he listens carefully to the response, because in my experience of battling with the ECGD in the past against the Ilisu dam, it took a great deal of effort to make it think outside the box at all? We thus need some tough words from the Minister.

Gregory Barker: Indeed we do, and that is what we are looking for. Ultimately, we need a far more ambitious strategy right at the heart of the Government, not just at the ECGD. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood hopes, now is the time for the Government to get serious about matching ambition with action. I hope that the Committee supports the principles behind the new clause.

Steve Webb: I also lend my support to the measure, which was expertly moved. I see the name of the Chair of the International Development Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce), attached to the amendment. I have a sneaking suspicion that my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable), in his characteristically iconoclastic fashion, would rather abolishor somethingthe ECGD. However, for as long as it continues, I can see no reason, particularly because of the global leadership factors that the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood mentioned, why we should not have comprehensive reporting of the sort that he suggests. The Liberal Democrats thus support the new clause.

Phil Woolas: Congratulations are due to the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood on tabling the amendment. It is always nice when there is a champagne moment in a Committee, and we have reached such a point, because the Government have listened to the arguments made by the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood and, incidentally, those of the right hon. Member for Gordon and the right hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley), and faced with the array of arguments, we have decided to announce that we agree with the proposal.
I confirm here and now that the ECGD will report emissions from high-potential-impact cases from this financial year and will inform applicants in respect of its support for medium-potential-impact cases that they will be required to provide information on their emissions. That information will be published from the financial year 2009-10. My hon. Friend the Minister for Energy will confirm the details of that arrangement shortly. The Environmental Audit Committee is looking at this matter.
As the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood mentioned, in line with the approach on better regulationnot having regulation when it is not necessaryit makes sense to achieve the effects of the new clause without legislative change. This is a fast-moving field, so it would be a shame if the ECGD was not able to maintain its position as the leader of the pack in the world because it needed, at some point, to change an Act every time new developments occurred. This announcement makes the ECGD the first export credit agency in the world to report systematically on emissions from projects that it supports. That is a good example of how we can lead the way.
Let me just cover the high potential impact cases. Starting with the financial year 2008-09, ECGD will publish on its website, in respect of each financial year, estimates of the greenhouse gas emissions as follows: first, it will publish estimates on those projects for which ECGD has provided support in that financial year that fall into category Ahigh-potential impactas determined in accordance with the ECGDs case impact analysis process statement; secondly, it will publish estimates for those projects with greenhouse gas emissions that exceed the threshold used by the International Finance Corporation, as described in its performance standard; and, thirdly, it will publish estimates when the value of the goods and services supported by ECGD exceeds a sum, which is equivalent at the moment to about £8.2 million, to the threshold set out in the OECD council recommendation on common approaches on environment and officially supported export credits.
On medium-potential-impact cases, there is more good news for the hon. Gentleman. From 1 January 2009, ECGD will collect data on greenhouse gas emissions as follows: first, it will collect data from projects that it has provided support for that fall into category B, as determined in accordance with the case impact analysis statement. It will collect data from projects with emissions that exceed the threshold used by the International Finance Corporation, as described in performance standard 3 and when the value of goods and services, supported by ECGD, exceeds the special drawing rights threshold set out in the OECD common approaches policy statement. Those are the thresholds that are used on a multinational basis.
The argument is very strong. It is important that this countrys export credit guarantees are supporting our international efforts, as has been said. That is why the Government are pleased to make this announcement. In the interests of pursuing this policy immediately, I respectfully ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the new clause.

Nick Hurd: A champagne moment indeed. I thank the Minister for that extremely detailed reply. I know that he and his Department dance with the angels on this issue. I also know that the ECGD reports directly to the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, about which many of us are more sceptical when it comes to its commitment to this agenda. Because I have done business with the Minster before, I accept at face value what he says and what he has read out. We will consider the detail of the proposal with great interest. We note that the ECGD continues to demand flexibility on how it does that, and that it avoids that being done on a statutory basis or on any amendment being made to the Act that governs it. That causes us some concern. However, on the basis of what I have heard, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 10

Carbon impact assessments
(1) After the publication of proposals and policies for meeting carbon budgets under section 13, the Secretary of State must for any new measure, proposal or policy made in any area of administration carry out an assessment of how that measure, proposal or policy will affect UK emissions and what effect it will have on the achievement of the 2050 target (a carbon impact assessment).
(2) If a carbon impact assessment shows that a measure, proposal or policy would increase UK emissions, then it must also set out the measures necessary to ensure that the 2050 target is nonetheless achieved.
(3) A carbon impact assessment must be published at the same time as the measure, proposal or policy to which it relates..[Gregory Barker.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Gregory Barker: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause is intended to formalise a policy that already exists informally in government. The requirement to assist the carbon impact of any policy is to be adopted across the Administration. The Prime Minister said in a speech last November that every new policy would be examined for its impact on carbon emissionsnot just those that reduce emissions, but those that increase them. When emissions rise in one sector, we will have to achieve corresponding falls in another. That does not just mean every new Act of Parliament. It means that all policies, proposals and spending commitments right across Government must be assessed in that way. That was an ambitious statement from the Prime Minster, and we welcomed it then and we welcome it now. However, we would like to see that policy enshrined in law and linked to the duty on the Secretary of State to report on the proposals and policies for meeting the carbon budget as required under clause 13 of the Bill. If it is not, how can the public be confident that the de facto requirement is being followed? How can they be confident that successive Governments, between 2010 and 2050, will take seriously the word of a weak Prime Minister in 2007?
One only need to have listened to our previous debate on the enormous yet unaccounted carbon pollution from the Export Credit Guarantee Department to see that while an unwritten requirement might exist in the Government to assess the carbon impact of any new policy, that does not stop different Departments from carrying on regardless. DBERRs support for a new and unabated coal-burning power plant at Kingsnorth also suggests that the writ of the Prime Ministers words of last December does not currently extend to every reach of his Government, so we must do better. That is why our new clause would require the Secretary of State to order a formal assessment of how any new measure, proposal or policy across any Government Department would affect our carbon budgets and the 2050 targets.
Moreover, if the assessment showed that the new policy would increase UK emissions, the report would have to set out the measures necessary to ensure that the 2050 target was nevertheless achieved. The impact assessment must be published at the same time as the proposed policy to which it relates. That will prevent a situation in which the Government can say that while the impact assessments concludes, the emission levels will increase as a result of the policy. The process has already progressed too far to stop it.
Lord Rooker said in the other place:
legislation is often made toward the end of policy development, so a test applied only at that stage would not, in itself, achieve much.[Official Report, House of Lords, 25 February 2008; Vol. 699, c. 487.]
We believe that our new clause would prevent that situation from arising by requiring the assessment to be published at the same time as the policy proposal to which it relates. It is about enhancing the joined-up nature of government, and the adequacy of our political response to the challenge that we face. Do we want to continue with business as usual, allowing the opening of new airport runways and the building of new coal-powered plants, all without questioning the contributing effect that such decisions will have on our carbon reduction targets; or do we want truly to change the way in which we do government so that we can respond effectively to the climate change agenda, rather than progressing with a patchwork of non-joined-up and all too often contradictory policies?
I conclude by quoting Abraham Lincoln. He said:
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present...we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves.
That is what the new clause challenges us to do: to think anew, and to conduct government in a way that is commensurate with the challenge that we face from dangerous, man-made climate change. It demands a new, joined-up, big-picture approach from Government. If we are to succeed, that is what we need.

Peter Atkinson: Order. I believe that this is a convenient moment to suspend the Committee. We will resume at 9 pm.

Sitting suspended.

On resuming

Martin Horwood: I want to pass on the apologies of my hon. Friend the Member for Northavon. He is probably involved in a particularly vital pudding.
I appreciate the intention behind new clause 10 and, in the spirit of cross-party co-operation, we are trying our best to support those on the Conservative Front Bench when they make sensible suggestions. However, I must say that the new clause is a little ropey. It is not as good as new clause 11, which is to follow. It first commits the sin of loose wording. We have the commitment to publish a carbon impact assessment
for any new measure, proposal or policy made in any area of administration.
That is quite a broad spread. Does it mean that, if the Charity Commission wants to revise the public benefit test guidance for public schools, on line and thus not even publish anything, it has to conduct a carbon impact assessment before doing so?
To implement such a change, the Charity Commission will have to send an e-mail to public schools, and probably to the Cabinet Office to prepare it for the flak from outraged Tory MPs, and that will take electricity, which will result in a slight increase in carbon emissions. It will then have to produce not only the carbon impact assessment itself, but set out the measures necessary to ensure that the 2050 target is achieved none the less. That is a big ask, and an expensive ask for the Charity Commission.

Gregory Barker: There is no ask at all. On something so mundane and simple, no action would need to be taken. A whole set of actions cannot be constructed when none is needed. A degree of consent is required when dealing with such matters. Common sense can be applied to the interpretation of such a measure.

Martin Horwood: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I do not see much scope for common sense in the wording before us. The new clause states that the Secretary of State
must for any new measure...in any area of administration,
and that sounds much too broad. Furthermore, the new clause seems to go against the spirit of some amendments that we considered earlier, particularly those that sought to bring issues of biodiversity into a broader sense of environmental impact. Instead, it would again narrow issues just to the impact of carbon.
In contrast to the example that I cited, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle rightly highlighted major issues, such as Kingsnorth or Heathrow, but an environmental impact assessment was conducted in respect of the Heathrow consultation. There were assessments of carbon emissions, the impact on carbon emissions and certainly the economic cost of carbon. The Heathrow consultation went the wrong way because the shadow price of carbon was set at the wrong level, so the environmental impact was not sufficiently strongly weighted in that consultation. We ought to be wresting with those sorts of issues in respect of major projects, and I am not sure that the new clause would achieve that end. It is well intentioned, but not well designed.

Phil Woolas: I hope that you managed to get something to eat, Mr. Atkinson, to sustain you through our fascinating deliberations.
A similar new clause was tabled in the other place. It might have been identical. My argument against it is that consideration of the impact of policies on emissions is already a central part of the policy-making process throughout Whitehall, with a system in place to make sure that it happens. Like the hon. Member for Cheltenham, I agree with the intent of the new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle, which is again urging firm action to be taken. However, as was argued in the Lords, that is already in place.
Detailed requirements and guidance on carbon impact assessments are already on the public websites of DEFRA and the Better Regulation Executive, and are followed by all Departments.

John Gummer: I happen to live and work right next door to the new Ministry of Justice. The Ministry has not entered its building yet, but it is taking possession of it. The lights are on all night, every night. I wonder at what point someone will take note of the carbon footprint involved. I would like someone to, because I could then go to sleep without having the lights burning into my room. I have to declare an interest there. However, I remember that as the Minister responsible for what were called Green Ministers, it was difficult to get people to do what we wanted them to do. Can the Minister help by telling usif he will not accept the new clausewhether there are ways in which we could help him to do more in this area? This is a serious issue.

Phil Woolas: That is a good example, and the answer to the right hon. Gentlemans question is the carbon reduction commitment. When that comes inall Departments will be covered by itthe Ministry will have to put a price on it. We already have the Sustainable Development Commission report into Whitehall, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State ensured was published and circulated. We have taken measures and are moving in the right direction, but the right hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The CRC will factor into the finances. Once one gets the finance directors involved in such decisions, hearts and minds tend to follow. I think that it was Mario Puzo who said in The Godfather that he wanted the meeting of the five families to be held in a bank because there is nothing
more conducive to pure reason, than the atmosphere of money.
I take that example.
My point before that helpful intervention was about the new procedures for impact assessments. Members may wish to recall that in May 2007 a new format for impact assessments was introduced to replace the then regulatory impact assessments, and in November of that year it became the compulsory format for all impact assessments. That format includes a requirement that the impact of policies on both carbon and the wider environment is considered and quantified. If one looks at impact assessments for Government Bills, one sees that taken into account. That approach ensures that each Department is required to consider fully the impact on carbon of its policies, and to make that clear in its impact assessments. One of the jobs of Ministers nowadays is to sign those off. The current impact assessment process requires policy makers to take carbon into account throughout the policy development process.
The detailed requirements and guidance on carbon impact assessmentsas I was sayingare published on the websites of DEFRA and the Better Regulation Executive. For each policy, an assessment must be carried out as to whether it could result in a significant increase or decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, and where possiblebefore the CRCthat change must be given a monetary value, including costs and benefits. The use of that impact assessment is now well embedded in Whitehall procedures, and helps to ensure that Departments are fully aware of the carbon impact of their policies. We also require that carbon assessment processes are kept up to date and are responsive to developments in impact assessment procedures and in the measurement of the impact of carbon emissions. So, it is likely that enshrining these measures in legislation could restrict that responsiveness and lead to inflexibilitybut that is not my main argument.
The hon. Member for Cheltenham pointed out some of the drafting problems and I will not repeat them. We should also remember the important role that the Committee on Climate Change will play in monitoring progress. Clause 35 requires that committee to look at progress towards the targets, and the committee will do that across the board, looking not just at the proposals and policies set out in the clause 14 report that we agree. So, if the committee is concerned about increasing emissions, I expect hon. Members will point this out. The intention of the new clause is already covered by the new impact assessment and the incoming carbon reduction commitment. My second argument would be to repeat the arguments of the hon. Member for Cheltenham.

Gregory Barker: I will not rehearse the arguments. It is the Prime Ministers stated aim that every new policy would be examined for its impact on carbon emissions. Although the Minister points to the Governments record, anyone who looks at that record in earnest would find it hard to believe that that was the case in view of Government policy on such issues as Kingsnorth, airport expansion and the list goes on.
The purpose of the amendment was to try to draw the Government to stick by the Prime Ministers fine words last November. I take comfort, if not from the Governments record, from what the Minister said about the future role of the Climate Change Committee and the fact that it will approach this. We would have preferred to find a way to pin down the Government to ensure that this was enshrined right across Whitehall, but in light of the Ministers words and the lack of support from elsewhere, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 11

Statements of compatibility
(1) A Minister of the Crown in charge of a Bill in either House of Parliament must, before Second Reading of the Bill
(a) make a statement to the effect that in his view the provisions of the Bill are compatible with the principal aim of this Act (a statement of compatibility); or
(b) make a statement to the effect that although he is unable to make a statement of compatibility the Government nevertheless wishes the House to proceed with the Bill.
(2) The statement must be in writing and be published is such a manner as the Minister making it considers appropriate..[Gregory Barker.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Gregory Barker: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
This new clause goes to the heart of how the Bill will work. It fixes a deficiency in the Bill that is crucial to its working. It would require a ministerial statement of assurance to be placed on all future Bills that the provisions contained in them are compatible with the Climate Change Act, which is what we all hope this Bill will become. This function is similar to the statement regarding compatibility with the Human Rights Act 1998, with which hon. Members will be very familiar. It therefore has a precedent.
We do not think that such a statement would be appropriate for other Bills, although they might be important. It does not make sense to require every piece of legislation to be compatible with the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007 or the Crossrail Bill or whatever, but given the overarching nature of climate change we believe that it is appropriate for this Bill. This is a ground-breaking piece of legislation that will affect every decision that this and successive Governments make until 2050 and most likely beyond.
If the Government are serious about their commitment to reducing emissions, they should be more than happy to assure both Houses that their legislation is compatible with the principal aim of the UK playing our part in preventing dangerous man-made climate change. The business of reducing emissions must be a comprehensive one or the entire project fails. The aims of the Bill must be seen as a brush that varnishes every policy and colours every proposal. A statement of compatibility will make sure that this is the case. It is not enough just to pass the Bill. Then the real work begins, not ends. We must ensure that the Act gets the job done.

Steve Webb: I suspect that the new clause was drafted when the Bill had a principal aim, which was clause 1. Now there is no clause 1, what does the hon. Gentleman understand to be an assertion? All we have is a target for 2050. What does this mean in the absence of that clause?

Gregory Barker: I think it is the trajectories that will be implicit in the legislation. We have a target. We hope that we will have a revised and more important target. There is a clear policy direction in the Bill, even though it does not have the principal aim that we had intended and which it had when it left the other place. We are hopeful that a compromise that we discussed much earlier in our deliberations on 2° C will be forthcoming on Report. I am hopeful that when the Bill receives Royal Assent it will make more sense than it does now.
I am worried that the Bill will not be implemented as it should be, and new clause 11 would solve any such worries. I expect that the Minister will tell me that once the Bill becomes law, civil servants will be required to give advice within its constraints, but that simply is not enough. It is a negative way of approaching climate change. We do not just want the civil service to be mindful of not being in breach of the Bill. We think that there should be active engagement with climate change issues in all policy areas. The new clause would mean that the Bill teams would have to work hard to ensure that everything that they put into legislation would help to move towards the 2050 target of stopping global warming. That would be an important way of ensuring that we actually meet the target.
An additional argument, used in another place against a similar measure, is that it would be very difficult to tell if a proposal were incompatible with the Bill. In some respect, I can see the Governments point: it is a framework Bill that does not prevent any particular policy from coming to fruition, but sets out a schedule and pattern for reducing emissions. Let us imagine that legislation is presented that would require the building of 10 new unabated coal-fired power stations. Although that would make it extremely difficult to reach the 2050 target, it would not be in conflict with any particular part of the Billso the argument runs. It would require the Government to rely heavily on mechanisms in the Bill that can contribute to reductions in other areas, but it would not be against the Bill as a whole.
That is a problematic argument for a number of reasons. For a start, it exposes a severe contradiction in the Governments two reasons for opposing new clause 11, as they did in the other place. There was the argument that civil servants would have to abide by the Bill when making recommendations, and in that manner the Bill would be driven across all Departments. However, the Government then insist that no individual policies would come into conflict with the Bill. How then will the Bill be driven across Whitehall, as the Government claim that it will be, if in their opinion there is no conceivable individual policy that could conflict with it? In that case, there will be nothing to make civil servants consider the Bill for a moment before making recommendations. They could leave it to DEFRA to figure out how to offset their policies elsewhere.
That is a real concern. I have no doubt about the ability of the statement of compatibility to be effective if tethered to a principal aim in the Bill, which we do not have at the moment, and which we discussed in our first sitting. As the hon. Member for Northavon said, the fate of the new clause is also tethered to the fate of the principal aim. In light of the Ministers helpful indication that a principal aim could be included in the Bill, whether in the form of a preamble or statement of purpose, new clause 11 cannot be dismissed as irrelevant.

Steve Webb: These are important issues. In a world of cap and trade emissions trading schemes, is there not a danger that the hon. Gentlemans new clause would not achieve what he wants? For example, following legislation allowing for many more coal-fired power stations, the Government might simply offset the carbon elsewhere in the trading scheme, so even the worst Bill would be compatible with this one.

Gregory Barker: Of course that is a danger, but we should at least be asking those questions, and I think that we should be able to hold to account civil servants and Ministers who come before Select Committees and the scrutiny of the House of Commons and the House of Lords. They should have to defend their judgment that the Bill that they are introducing is compatible with this Bill and stand by the fact that it is appended to the front of the Bill.

John Gummer: Is that not surely the point? Those people would have to ask themselves a very difficult question: Can I honourably sign this document and say that it is commensurate with the Climate Change Act? It is tremendously important to ensure that that is done.

Gregory Barker: I attach value to that judgment, given my right hon. Friends previous experience as a Secretary of State. However, the hon. Member for Northavon is right to say that it is not a failsafe. If a Government or a Secretary of State is determined to get around it, and can sleep easily with his conscience at night, it would not provide a failsafe. However, as a parliamentary barrier providing the checks and balances that are available to us within the system, it represents a useful mechanism for ensuring that there is a greater, if not complete and infallible, compatibility across the legislative process.
In the Governments version, even with a preamble, there will be no active duty on Whitehall to give serious considerationtotal considerationto climate change impacts. In our version, including the statement of compatibility, that would be an integral part of the initial process, before a Bill even came to Parliament. That would be the value of it, as my right hon. Friend implied.
I understand that some legislation would be affected in less severe ways. The Bill that became the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, for example, was an extremely important Bill that was going to have a more or less minimal impact on carbon emissions. It would be relatively easy for a Minister to make such a statement on such a Bill. However, for the Planning Bill, it would require a tremendous amount of work on the part of officials for the Minister to make such a statement.
The new clause is about placing climate change issues at the heart of Government decision making. It would make certain that the unified approach that is so necessary to success was taken in practice. We all know that half measures will not suffice. A change of awareness, as well as a change of policy, must be driven right the way across Whitehall. We need a complete change of culture, and the new clause would help to drive that culture change. If the Government are truly committed to the ambitious and dramatic action to stop climate change that we need, they will support the new clause.

John Gummer: If we must take legislative powers to force people to do something about plastic bags, it is not unreasonable to insist that Departments take seriously the issues of climate change as underlined in this great Bill. I know that the Minister will have been advised that there are all kinds of difficult reasons why he should not accept the new clause. I shall put to him the results of my own questioning of Departments in recent months about the impact of their measures on the emissions in this country. They were some of the worst answers to questions that I have ever had. I will use just one set of examples.
I asked the Department involved about the decision to close 2,000 post offices. I asked what measures it had taken regarding the effect on emissions of closing post offices. I asked both generally and particularly. I had asked those questions of the Post Office, which told me that the Government had told it that it was to close the 2,000 post offices and had not told it anything about any need to measure the emissions relating to that. The Department said that it did not know what the emissions were as a result of the closure of post offices either in general or in particular. It did not say, but the answers to the questions certainly suggested that it did not care much either, because that had not been part of its calculation.
It seems that if we are to take this Bill seriously, we must start by taking it seriously at the heart of Government. That means that the Department responsible for the Bill has to recognise that it is, in a sense, a missionary to the dark interior, that the dark interior is much of the rest of Government and that however strongly we and the Department believe, that does not make it a general belief. I say to the Minister that this is one of the moments at which the phrase that I mentioned at the beginning of our debates, Better not, is very dangerous indeed. He needs to accept that he requires our help. He needs a statutory basis on which all Departments have to take seriously this Bill, not in general but in particular. Whenever they present something to Parliament for Parliament to consider, they must previously have asked themselves what it will mean when it comes to be measured against the climate change requirements to which this Government, this nation, the European Union and, I hope, people beyond that have agreed.
This is a difficult thing to say, but I have to say it. Civil servants are a vital part of the whole structure of government. Their most important role comes when they are powerful enough to say to Ministers, Actually, you cant do that because the law says that you cant. Twice in my ministerial life the permanent secretary has come to me regarding a decision that I wanted to make. The first was my refusal to close a ministerial office in Cornwall because I thought that it was wrong for Cornwall to have no offices from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries of Food. The second was my decision to spend Government money on the cleaning up of the site of the domeI thought it wrong that an area so close to London should be carcinogenic and that that needed to be done. In both cases, I had to sign a document accepting that the permanent secretary had advised me that I was going against the advice of civil servants, and that I had made a political decision against that advice. I am proud of both decisions and do not mind saying when they were.
At that point, the civil servant is at his or her most powerful and, in a sense, important. On both occasions, I had to think the whole matter through again, because one could clearly be held accountable for that decision in a special, personal way. I believe that that is precisely what should happen to every Minister on every issue brought before them, and that is why I support the new clause. That may be extreme, but Members on this monumental Bill should not allow people to think that it is like any other Bill. It is the new politicsif I may coin a phrase that may ring across the Benches. The new politics means that we must get everybody to understand that from now on, all our actions will be in a new context.
This is a framework Bill because it changes the framework within which political decisions are made. Our problemand I return to the phraseis that in that sense we are missionaries to the dark interior, not only within the Government but within the Opposition and the Liberal Democrat party. However much we say that everybody is convinced about this issue, we all know that among our colleagues there are some who are burning with it, some who accept it and some who just about accept it. That is true for all of us. The hon. Member for Cheltenham may shake his head, but I know some of his colleagues whom I would not trust with an environmental policy for very long and he knows them too. That is the truth.
This Bill is the means with which we change the way that everybody operates in a real sense. That is why the Government must start there, and why this offering to the Minister is worth taking up. It will mean that the whole force of the civil service will be able to act when Ministers try to swing the lead whenever it is convenient, politically acceptable or because certain circumstances arise. All Governments are involved in this. I do not want to say this in an unpleasant way, but this measure is probably more likely to affect those of us on the Conservative Benches than those on the Labour Benches, at least at the moment. We do not do this to make things difficult for the present GovernmentI want Ministers of every Government under every circumstance to understand that they must take the issue into account.
I do not agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle on this matter. He mentioned the question of a legal Bill. I am appalled that the policies of the predecessors to the Ministry of Justice, for example, meant that our decisions about magistrates courts and courts were made totally unthinkingly. In my area of the country, we thought that we would save money by concentrating magistrates courts in particular places, but we have hugely increased the carbon impact. Policemen now have to come from all over the countythey have to go to one placeand the same applies to witnesses.
That was all paid for by the Ministry of Justice, or whatever the Department was previously called. It found that its budget had reduced, but the move increased the Home Office budgetthe police budgetthe local authority budget and most individual budgets, and, above all, it increased our carbon budget. If the Department had had to say to Parliament that its policy would have had an effect contrary to the intentions of the Bill, it would now have to explain itself.
This is part of the transparency agenda that the Committee seems universally to support. I hope that the Minister will see the new clause as lifeline for him and for DEFRA, and that they will not dismiss it because of those who say, Better not. The biggest better-notters are those in the Treasury. I bet that they have said, Better not, with an enthusiasm that suggests that the Minister had better not fail to listen.

Phil Woolas: A very important point has been made. My attitude, and that of the Government, is again, not surprisingly, to support the sort of locking-in mechanism of which the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle and the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal spoke in favour. Such locking-in legislation is required, but we believe that the superstructure of the Bill already provides for it.
I am in danger of repeating my arguments on new clause 10. We agree that an important point underlies the new clause. It is about ensuring that the Government of the day take account of the full range of policies, including those that increase emissions as well as those that bring them down. However, as I said in response to the debate on new clause 10, we believe that robust processes are already in place to ensure that, at every stage of policy development, the carbon impact of policies and legislation are assessed. I certainly agree that legislation is often the end of the process, so it is important to build that in.
A similar measure was debated in the other place. As a result of deliberations, we made a commitment to amend guidance in the explanatory notes. Such notes accompany all primary legislation. The change requires that the section of the explanatory notes covering the impact assessment makes specific reference to the more detailed carbon impact assessment. That is important when taken in the round with the carbon budgets, the carbon reduction commitment and, perhaps, future cap-and-trade schemes.
The new policy is that revised guidance will be published in time for Bills to be introduced in the 2008-09 Session, but I confirm that that change has been applied to legislation being considered in this Session. At page 66 of the explanatory notes, in paragraph 402, the Committee will see the result of that process. The section that summarises the impact assessment now includes a discussion of the Bills carbon impact. By explicitly detailing the carbon impact of each policy in the overall cost-benefit analysis, and, when applicable, the package of parliamentary documents, we can ensure that the objective is met.
A compatibility test, in addition to the points that I have made, would, I fear, have limited practical effect. The difference between that idea and the Human Rights Act compatibility test, on which I believe the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle based his new clause, is that while with human rights we can look at every individual measure, it would, in practice, be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to demonstrate that a single piece of legislation was, on its own, incompatible with the aims of the Bill. It is better to look at the carbon budget policy, backed up by the other measures that I have mentioned.
The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal cited the interesting example of the Post Office, but the new clause would not catch that because it deals with primary legislation, which is only part of the picture, although that is not to diminish the right hon. Gentlemans point. In the new politics, if may use his phrase, we believe that the carbon budgets that flow from the Bill, which, I agree, create the new epoch, will fundamentally change the way in which decisions are taken, not just across Whitehall but across the wider economy.
Taken together, the package will achieve much more than a compatibility test just for primary legislation. While I accept that it would be a high-profile statement, in practice it would be very difficult, if not impossible in some cases, for legislation to fail the test. I fear that the measure would not add anything.

Gregory Barker: I am disappointed by that response. I appreciate what the Minister says about how processes will change and about the legislation that will be considered, but there is another test that he did not mention. It might not be the legal or technical tests that we are used to, but it is the embarrassment test. That is probably what lies at the heart of the Governments reluctance to accept the new clause. They know that to bring forward measures that would allow coal power stations to be built unabated, a third runway at Heathrow airport, or other such measures that we cannot anticipate now but will come forward in time, would run counter to, and fly in the face of, a progressive climate change strategy to reduce our emissions. Everybody knows that; one does not need a degree in politics or an understanding of the administration of government to realise that. A brazen statement stamped on the front of legislation saying that it was incompatible with the Climate Change Act would be deeply embarrassing for the Secretary of State and the ministerial team responsible for bringing it to Parliament. The Minister knows that much legislation would fail the embarrassment test.

John Gummer: The Secretary of State would have to work harder to win the case, and that loads the dice against taking easy ways out. The proposal is worthwhile. Why do we not do implement it for that purpose? If it does not do any other harm, it is not unreasonable to add it to the Bill.

Gregory Barker: I think so. It is a shame for a further reason. I do not know how one would measure this, but the proposal would add to the Bills long-term effect. The ministerial team must take a great deal of credit for the effect that the Act, as we hope it will become, will have. It was not the Secretary of State, but the Minister of Statethe Minister for the Environmentwho brought it forward on Second Reading, and it is the two Ministers before us who have piloted it through Committee and who will be responsible for it. They will have an extraordinary legacy for any parliamentarian: an Act that will hopefully last for decades to come. This is a pioneering piece of legislation and the new clause would make it more effective. I will not suggest that it would make it incredibly more effective, but it would give it more teeth and add to its likely impact. Therefore, it is sad that the Minister has not resisted the other forces at work within the Administrationthose who say, Better not, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal points outand has set his face against accepting a common-sense, practical and workable addition to the Bill.
In the light of a lack of support, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 12

The civil estate
(1) The Secretary of State must ensure that the annual emissions of carbon dioxide from each individual government department in 2011 are at least 15.2 per cent. lower than the equivalent emissions of carbon dioxide in the 1990 baseline.
(2) The Secretary of State must ensure that the average energy efficiency per square metre of all property owned by each individual government department in 2010 is at least 15 per cent. higher than the equivalent amount measured as in 1990.
(3) Any property in the control of the QinetiQ Group plc shall not be counted under this section.
(4) The Secretary of State must as soon as reasonably practicable ensure that a reduction is made in the funding of each government department for energy and utilities costs which is in line with the existing Government Sustainable Operations Targets for carbon emissions, waste arisings and water consumption..[Gregory Barker.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Gregory Barker: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause would place an obligation on the Government to meet targets for carbon reduction and improving energy efficiency in their own estate, within their own Government buildings. The Conservative party has long argued that the Government must be seen to be taking the lead on decarbonising the UK. Politicians cannot ask the public to make the effort without doing the same themselves. Sadly, do as I say, not do as I do, seems to be commonplace these days.
It is paramount that the Government are proactive in their approach to reducing carbon emissions and that they take the lead on tackling carbon emissions in the civil estate. They must also lead the field in promoting energy efficiency and strive for higher levels of energy efficiency on their own patch before pressing others to do the same.
Government figures estimate that if the civil estate reached carbon neutrality, that would save approximately 800,000 tonnes of carbon a year. That figure is the equivalent of filling the Royal Albert hall with carbon dioxide more than 20 times a day.
What is being done to try to move the civil estate towards carbon neutrality? Tony Blair launched Sustainable Operations on the Government estate in June 2006, which included a wide variety of targets, such as reversing the upward trend in carbon emissions on the civil estate by April 2007, reducing carbon emissions from offices by 12.5 per cent. by 2010-11 and by 30 per cent. by 2020, and being carbon-neutral by 2012. The Government then established the Sustainable Development Commission to monitor the progress towards these goals.
Progress towards the targets is monitored by the independent SDC. In March, it published its report on the Governments performance thus far, which was called Sustainable Development in Government 2007. I am afraid, however, that that report does not make encouraging reading. It concluded that radical and urgent action was required if the Government were to get anywhere near reaching their targets. It found that
nearly two-thirds of departments are not on track to meet their own 12.5 per cent. reduction target by 2010/11.
Furthermore, 15 Departments reported poor progress, or no progress at all.
The report also found that the poor quality of data often provided by Departments made it difficult to arrive at a true and accurate picture. Only one Government Department scored above 90 per cent. of the target points and some Departments did not even submit the data that were required.
The report also noted that there was a dodgy-dossier aspect to the Government figures. It said:
Pan-government performance...is distorted by the fact that MOD still include data from...QinetiQ,
a defence contractor that has been privatised. The report states:
The SDC understands that over a third of MODs office carbon reductions can be attributed to the privatisation of QinetiQ. If we exclude QinetiQ from MODs baseline data the emissions reductions made by MOD between 1999 and 2007 are lower than reported, and as a result carbon emissions from offices across the government estate have only reduced by 0.7 per cent.
The report also says:
If we exclude MOD, carbon emissions from the rest of government actually increased by 22 per cent.
That is a whopping increase.
Jonathon Porritt, the chairman of the SDC, was so disappointed by these findings that he wrote on his blog:
I find all this so depressing that I now hate having to comment on it. In fact, this year, I opted out of all media work around our report.
How depressing indeed.
It is time that we challenged the Government on this litany of missed targets and questionable figures. As the Bill is committing this country to future carbon reduction targets, it is only right that the Government are held accountable to the carbon reduction targets that they have set themselves.
In our discussion on indicative annual ranges, we all agreed that it was not acceptable to have one Government passing their unachieved targets on to the next Administration and blaming the new incumbents for not meeting target budgets that they have had little time or opportunity to influence. Neither should we allow the Government to perform as badly on their sustainable operation targets as the SDC has reported that they have, thus allowing them to pass those failed targets on to what I hope will be a new Government in 2010.
New clause 12 would put a requirement on the Secretary of State to ensure that the annual emissions of carbon dioxide from each Department in 2011 are at least 15.2 per cent. lower than the equivalent emissions of carbon dioxide in the 1990 baseline15.2 per cent. below 1990 levels was the rather arbitrary climate change programme review target set by the Government in 2006. If we are going to ask the nation to meet one target, I suggest that we ask the civil estate to do the same, rather than the existing target of 12.5 per cent. below 1999-2000 levels. Will the Minister please explain where that 12.5 per cent. came from?
New clause 12 also puts a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure that the average energy efficiency per square metre of all property owned by each Department in 2010 is at least 15 per cent. higher than the equivalent amount as measured in 1990. That will improve the Governments sustainable operations target by putting the baseline to 1990, rather than the existing Government baseline of 1999-2000, which will hopefully prevent a recurrence of the current situation. At least seven Departments worsened their energy efficiency against the baseline during 2007, including, I am sorry to say, DEFRADEFRA increased its energy use by 32 per cent. per square metre. After the revelation in the Sustainable Development Commission report about the misuse of data from the MOD, I do not need to explain to the Committee why I feel that any property in control of QinetiQ should not be counted towards meeting those targets.
Finally, new clause 12 legislates for the savings made by improved efficiency, resulting in savings in public expenditure. Surely one of the real benefits of becoming more efficient in our use of resources is not only that it is better for the environment, but that it delivers real cost savings, too. Such cost savings to the public purse should result in better value for money for the taxpayer. It is only right and proper that the public see that those efficiency gains result in better use of their tax money and that going green means saving on money as well as waste. In announcing aims for the Government estate in 2006, the then Secretary of State for DEFRA, the right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband), stated:
We need to ensure that we show that big improvements are possible and we must deliver real value for money for the public purse.
The sentiment seems to be there from the Government. Unfortunately, all the evidence shows that the performance is not. New clause 12 will assist the Government in turning such words into practice.

Martin Horwood: There are a few problems with the new clause, but it addresses an important issue. Let us take the example of QinetiQ and that part of the defence estatealthough I am not sure how that comes under the heading of Civil estate. The hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood will also recall that the Environmental Audit Committee has questioned the Government over that anomaly within the figures. I think that the Government have already conceded that they will not do that in future and that current counting of carbon emissions does not include QinetiQ.
That highlights the dangers of the new clauseit is rather prescriptive and detailed. Therefore, on such issues, it is likely to become inappropriate rather quickly. The Conservative Front Benchers have spent so long trying to emulate new Labour that they have gone a little native and think that legislating is the answer to everything. In fact, there are important ways to tackle such issues that do not really require legislation. The Minister previously referred to the carbon reduction commitment, which will apply to Departments. However, interestingly, some of the better performance statistics from Departments on sustainability concern sourcing renewable energy. That returns us to the carbon reduction commitment, which the Committee has already discussed. There is also the role of good old-fashioned leadership and management, which involves giving clear objectives to Ministers to reduce the carbon footprint and other environmental impacts of their Departments, expecting them to meet those objectives and holding them to account if they do not.
The new clause is welcome in the sense that it raises an important issue. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle is quite right to praise the Sustainable Development Commission and its chairno more than I would expect from a constituent of mine. Some of the other statistics in the SDC report are truly frightening. Carbon emissions from vehicles increased by 1.5 per cent. against the baseline year. That shows no progress towards achieving the target of a 15 per cent. reduction by 2010-11 and is an area of serious concern. Energy efficiency per square metre improved by 21.7 per cent. against the 1999-2000 baseline. That sounds good, but once again the anomaly with the MOD has played a part in that. Without the improvements made by the MOD, energy efficiency across the rest of the Government estate worsened by 3.3 per cent. The report said that some limited progress was made towards the target for reducing water consumption, but that was rather generous because the actual result was -0.1 per cent. As the report says, that is
not enough to be on track to meet the target of a 25 per cent. reduction by 2020.
There is more in the report on recycling, which, as the Minister mentioned earlier, is an important component of trying to tackle climate change. We have some alarming statisticsso alarming that one almost cannot believe that they are true. If the figures supplied by the Departments are right, the Treasurys percentage of waste recycled in 2005-06 was 46 per cent., and within one year that dropped to 17.5 per cent., which seems to undermine the credibility of the figures.
The National Audit Office also produced a report last year, containing similarly alarming trends. Its headline finding was
Performance against the key target for reducing carbon emissions by 12.5 per cent. by 2010-11 is poor.
Its detailed findings looked across the Government estate and found that
Only five out of 21 civil departments have met, or are making progress against, the carbon reduction targetthough four of these five have done so only because of significant reductions in their estate area. The remaining 16 civil departments, including all the largest, have recorded increases in emissions.

John Gummer: The hon. Gentleman must agree that if a private company had figures like that, which it had to reveal in its corporate responsibility report, it would find itself so embarrassed that it would have to do something about them. Therefore, although it may be overtaken in the future, there is something to be said for forcing the Government to take those figures seriously. The figures are there, yet they do not seem to have made a difference to how the Government act.

Martin Horwood: The right hon. Gentleman has made two important points. First, the fact that we have these statistics and are able to discuss them is an important lesson for the private sector. How good it would be if the Government had accepted the need for this kind of transparency in the private sector. Secondly, he is right that if these were the published results of a private-sector company, investors would be asking questions. As Business in the Community always stresses, the meeting of targets like these is a good indicator of good management, leadership and achievement against strategic objectives. Clearly, the Government are not succeeding on that. The activities of the Government are an important proportion of the economy and send an enormously important message to businesses and individuals to do not just as we in the political class say, but as we aspire to do. In that sense, the new clause is welcome, at least in terms of raising important issues for debate.

Phil Woolas: The subject we are debating is important, not least because of the exemplar role that the Government take and the leadership role that all hon. Members accept. My problem with the proposal is that it goes in a different direction to the overall architecture of the Bill and the changes that it is making. The Sustainable Development Commission report, and the embarrassment that it caused us, have served to improve decision making across Whitehall. Indeed, without giving too many secrets away, its timing had an impact on the force of the carbon reduction commitment in this Bill. I do not wish to duck the responsibility, so let me explain our policy in that regard.
The Bill itself puts a framework in place which supports the most cost-effective approach to reducing emissions. That is an important point from the whole philosophy that the Stern report and others have outlined, both in reducing emissions and adapting to the impacts of climate change. New clause 12 would introduce several targets for the Government to put in the Bill, which would cherry-pick the Bills overall framework as the hon. Member for Cheltenham described in his opening remarks. I accept that several of the targets set out in the new clause are similar to some of the Governments existing, non-binding targets. However, that is not my central argument.
The central point is that the Bill sets overall targets for carbon emissions across the UK economy. We will need action by business consumers and the Government to meet our budgets. We have all sorts of targets in all sorts of fields in government. Indeed, we are often criticised for that. They undoubtedly play an important part in helping to meet the targets set under the Bill. Making certain targets legally binding, by enshrining them in the Bill as the new clause does, would raise the question why we did not choose other targets. That could lead to a proliferation of targets.
If we take the Ministry of Defence as an example of the activity of Government, the estatethe headquartersis important but so are the activities of the defence forces. By concentrating on the estate, we may be cutting off our nose to spite our face. The hon. Member for Cheltenham made a point about the MODs figures. The way the figures were skewed because of the way in which they were reported has now been taken into accountI accept that point, which shows the value of the exercise. The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal talked about disclosure of figures. That is another example, and I do not disagree with him. As I explained in the previous debate, we have a different way of getting to that.
There is a particular problem with the new clause which is this point about using the matrix of energy use per square metre. That needs to be explored, because Departments rationalise their use of space so as to address the research that indicates that on average Government offices are occupied about 25 per cent. less efficiently than the private sector. If the same number of people are put in a smaller area, using that measurement produces a perverse incentive. That point was highlighted in the Sustainable Development Commission report, which recommended a review of the sustainable operations on the Government estate energy efficiency target
as it causes a conflict between office rationalisation and the reduction of energy consumption.
So we can cut off our nose to spite our face.
As with the previous new clauses, my argument is not to duck the responsibility of this and future Governments. The right approach is to maintain the framework in the legislation, taking full account of sector-specific issues when setting the budgets. For example, the advice of the Committee on Climate Change in connection with the budget under clause 34 must include consideration of the sectors of the economy in which there are particular opportunities for meeting the carbon budget.
In its reports on proposals for meeting the budget under clause 14, the Government must specify how the proposals will affect particular sectors of the economy, including them. The carbon reduction commitment and the carbon budget includes the Government estate and the wider public sector estate. For example, that includes not only the headquarters of the Department of Health, but hospitals and health clinics. We therefore believe that we will meet the point that the hon. Gentleman is striving to make with the new clause.

Gregory Barker: If the Government address the point that we are struggling to make, it will be a triumph of hope over experience. They have had 10 years to get to grips with efficiency, and they have had three years to get to grips with the recommendations that I mentioned. Their progress has been abysmal despite all of the mechanisms that the Minister referred to effectively already being in place.
I was therefore disappointed, but not surprised, that the Minister failed to embrace an ambitious target that would have held his Administration to account for their performance up to 2010. I was rather more surprised than disappointed by the response from the Liberal Democrats, who have had a nasty outbreak of not-invented-here syndrome. I was surprised that they failed to support a practical measure that would have added a more robust element to the Bill to help the Government give the leadership that every citizen should rightly be asking for in the drive towards energy efficiency.

Martin Horwood: I am sorry about the hon. Gentlemans disappointment. I simply think that the impact of the NAO and SDC reports, which we are all quoting already, will inevitably be greater than the impact of the new clause. It is so prescriptive that it is unlikely to have the intended results.

Gregory Barker: I would love to share the hon. Gentlemans optimism that quoting reports in Committee late at night in a Corridor in Westminster will make a jot of difference to the activities and outcomes of Whitehall Departments. I think that, by and large, such reports simply gather dust and act as rhetoric fodder for politicians desperately trying to make speeches. We want action and leadership in Departments and a complete change from the unambitious culture and the failure that to get to grips with the efficiency agenda over the past 10 years. What lies behind the Governments resistance is a reluctance to embrace targets that they will be expected to reach by the next general election. They know that they would be setting themselves up to fail. With that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 13

Modelling used by government to forecast impact of policies on climate change
(1) The Committee shall provide the Secretary of State with advice on the modelling used by Government to forecast future emissions and the impact of individual policies on climate change.
(2) The Committee must, at the time it give its advice under this section to the Secretary of State, send a copy to the other national authorities.
(3) As soon as is reasonably practicable after giving its advice to the Secretary of State, the Committee must publish that advice in such a manner as it considers appropriate..[Martin Horwood.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Martin Horwood: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Peter Atkinson: With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 14Committees power to audit emissions statistics
(1) The Committee shall comment on the accuracy of the Governments statistics on emissions and provide the Secretary of State with advice on them.
(2) The Committee must, at the time it gives its advice under this section to the Secretary of State, send a copy to the other national authorities.
(3) As soon as is reasonably practicable after giving its advice to the Secretary of State, the Committee must publish that advice in such a manner as it considers appropriate..

Martin Horwood: We all know the hoary old saying, Lies, damn lies and statistics. It is true that statistics can be controversial. There is a website concerned with offsetting called cheatneutral.com. It allows people to offset their cheating. Honest people can log on to the site and buy credits for being honest and cheats can offset their cheating. The website claims:
This neutralises the pain and unhappy emotion and leaves you with a clear conscience.
Rather alarmingly, they have found only 9,000 people who are prepared to log on and be honest, but 65,768 who are prepared to log on as cheats. I think that it is aimed at people with partners who have indiscretions rather than at the kind of Government statistics that those of us in the political world might try to use and abuse.
My point is that the website suggests a high level of public cynicism. I am afraid that when it comes to Government statistics and the use of statistics by politicians, the publics threshold of cynicism is very low. The intergovernmental panel on climate change took an important step when it committed to having the broadest possible consensus over its use of statistics, which was specifically intended as a defence against mischievous opponents and those who are sceptical about the statistics.
When the Environmental Audit Committee considered the Climate Change Bill, it had a similar idea in mind when it made recommendation No. 34 in its report, with which I am sure the Ministers are completely familiar:
One particularly valuable aspect of the Committees work would be in providing challenge to, and public reporting on, Government forecasting and policy analysis.
Policy analysis is the subject of new clause 15, which I shall discuss later.
The Environmental Audit Committee also recommended that the committee
should be given a duty to audit the Governments publication of emissions statistics to ensure these are transparent, differentiating between emissions reductions made in this country and those funded abroad. It should also have a duty to comment annually on the assumptions and modelling used by the Government to forecast future emissions and estimate the impact of individual policies.
The issue of offsetting was uppermost in the Committees mind when it made that recommendation, but there are other variations on the statistics that can be used and abused. We only have to think about the various trends in CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions that Front Benchers have traded in Committee. If we look at the figures since 1990, we will see that the Government can quote their oft-used line that we are on track to meet our Kyoto commitments and are reducing CO2 emissions, because with regard to millions of tonnes of CO2, there has been a 5.6 per cent. drop since 1990.
Of course, others would suggest that that is entirely down to the dash for gas and that the statistics since 1995 actually show a 1.5 per cent. increase. That would mean that there had also been a 1.5 per cent. increase since 2000, since the two figures between 1995 and 2000 are exactly the same. Since 2003, there has still been an increase of the much smaller amount of 0.2 per cent. That all depends on where the baselines are and how one interprets the statistics.
In an earlier Committee sitting, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle claimed that the last Conservative Governments record on greenhouse gas emissions, particularly CO2, was rather better than that of the current Government, but that was more to do with economic recession than conscious policies to reduce carbon emissions. Were this country one day lucky enough to have a Liberal Democrat Government, I am sure that we might also be tempted to interpret the statistics to our advantage.
In order to remove the temptation of getting into that kind of party political debate from any future Liberal Democrat Administration and to get the statistics as much as possible out of the political arena and on to an impartial footing, it is important that the Environmental Audit Committees advice is followed and that the Committee on Climate Change is given that explicit role with regard to the statistics, assumptions and modelling used by the Government.

John Gummer: As the hon. Gentleman thinks that is so important, I wonder whether he would be prepared to have a parallel system for Liberal Democrat by-election literature, which certainly needs that kind of independence, as it is, without doubt, the least truthful stuff anyone has ever heard.

Peter Atkinson: Order.

Martin Horwood: I cannot think what the right hon. Gentleman is talking about. Only the other week in Henley I was picking up some fine magazines

Peter Atkinson: Order. The hon. Gentleman should return to the substance of new clause 13.

Martin Horwood: I stand correctedI should not rise to these things.
It is important, as the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal has said, to keep as much as possible out of the arena of party political football and move such important statistics into an area where there can be greater consensus and an objective view. The Committee on Climate Change must be constituted so as to provide that kind of authoritative and independent advice and have the right resources at its disposal.

Anne McIntosh: We are happy to support the new clause on the grounds that it would enhance the authority of the Committee on Climate Change, and improve the transparency of how the Government assess the countrys future emissions, and how individual policies will affect those emissions. One wonders how the hon. Gentleman found the website to which he referred and whether one must admit to cheating to find it, because other right hon. and hon. Members will perhaps be less inclined to use it.
The new clause is similar in many ways to new clause 10, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle spoke this evening. New clause 10 called for carbon impact assessments on all Government policies and how they would affect our emissions reductions ambitions. It gives pause for thought. There are some imponderables and unpredictables, such as weather conditions and the ability to forecast. The Government announced that the Met Office will be able to give more accurate forecasting, which we shall obviously wait to see.
New clause 14 would lend the Bill greater transparency, and enhance the role of the committee as an independent auditor of the Governments work. It will come as no surprise to my hon. Friends to hear that we are in favour of such an initiative. At this late stage, however, it is not necessary to repeat what I said earlier. I simply wish to record our support for the two new clauses and to say that we look forward to the Ministers response and seeing whether he is familiar with the website.

Phil Woolas: I confirm that I have never heard of the website. I can only assume that the hon. Member for Cheltenham was logging on while he wrote a by-election leaflet, but perhaps that is unkind.
As for the general emissions picture, it is not fair to suggest that the dash to gas is the only contribution. Energy efficiency and the work that much of our industry has done in the past few years is a major contributor towards the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. For the record, the important point is that the United Kingdom has broken the link between economic growth and the growth in emissions. Between 1997 and 2006, the economy grew by 47 per cent., while greenhouse gas emissions fell by just under 7 per cent., but I suspect that I will not be allowed to go any further.
I turn to the specifics of the new clause. We want to avoid duplicating at public expense work that has already been done in Departments. For that reason, when formulating analysis, we already allow the Committee on Climate Change free access to use Government modelling and statistics. That is supplemented by further independent research as the committee judges appropriate, which includes commissioning runs of various Government models, including energy and transport, for example.
In addition to giving access to the Government models, we fully expect that the committee will wish to comment on them. In fact, in some cases, the committee is already helping to develop and enhance some models. Indeed, it is the intention that the committees secretariat and the Governments analysts will have a dialogue to ensure that the modelling is as robust and as accurate as it can be. For example, a forum has already been set up through the Governments interdepartmental analyst group to ensure that that happens effectively.
New clause 13 would place a duty on the committee to advise the Secretary of State on the modelling used by the Government
to forecast future emissions and the impact of individual policies on climate change.
We are already putting in place measures to ensure that the committee is encouraged to provide feedback on the Governments modelling, and vice versa. It would not be helpful for that to be a duty. It is vitally important that we ensure that the committee is resourced adequately to carry out its task, and we concentrated on that earlier in our proceedings. On an operational level, I believe that the new clause would distract the committee from its key tasks, because it is disproportionate and could overburden the committee.
There is, of course, considerable interest in the Governments figures on emissions, and I can reassure the hon. Member for Cheltenham. Those statistics are produced by independent consultants on the Governments behalf, and they have to be produced in line with United Nations guidance. We are part of a global effort, and that auditing of emissions has to satisfy rigorous international crosschecking, quality assurance and quality control procedures, including verification of the figures and external peer review, before the figures are finalised. The United Kingdoms inventory has never been adjusted by that process. Stepping back from the specifics of the new clause, that global effort requires us to have that independent auditing already. I do not wish to overburden the committee, and neither do I wish to call into questionI am not suggesting that the hon. Gentleman didthe independence of our scientists, who are among the best in the world.

Anne McIntosh: When the Government and the scientists measure the emissions, what instrument do they use? Do they use the greenhouse gas protocol?

Phil Woolas: Yes. That good question reinforces my point. Part of our strategy is that the United Kingdom should be the home of the auditing industry, so this is a tremendously important issue for all the reasons that I have given. While I accept the intention of the new clause, I hope that that important point about verification and the need to avoid duplication is accepted.

Martin Horwood: I do not entirely buy everything that the Minister said, since he is in some respects trying to have it both ways. On the one hand he argues that the Government are doing much of this anyway and will be consulting and exchanging information with the committee, and on the other he argues that it will overburden the committee and that it therefore cannot do such a thing. I still think that this would be wise advice to take to make the process more robust. That would discourage inadvertent cheatinglet us call it thatin the presentation of statistics. In the light of the Governments unwillingness to accept the Environmental Audit Committees advice [Interruption.] I understand the Ministers points, and I welcome and appreciate many of the things that he said. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 15

Advice on climate change policy from Committee to Secretary of State
(1) The Committee may provide the Secretary of State with advice on any policy matters related to climate change.
(2) The Committee must, at the time it gives its advice to the Secretary of State, send a copy to the other national authorities.
(3) As soon as is reasonably practicable after giving its advice to the Secretary of State, the Committee must publish that advice in such a manner as it considers appropriate..[Martin Horwood.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Martin Horwood: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The purpose behind the new clause is once again derived from the Environmental Audit Committee report, and in particular from its comments on the importance of the Committee on Climate Change in being able to provide
challenge to, and public reporting on, Government forecasting and policy analysis.
It seems extraordinary to set up that expert body, with enormous authority in the fields of climate science, economics and Government policy making, and to give it huge influence over British Government policy and the future shape of the British economy by being able to advise the Government on the overall targets for carbon budgets and carbon emissions by 2050, and then to deny that extraordinary body the right to comment and advise on the policies that will be required to get to those targets. That is somewhat equivalent to asking Einstein to say that E=mc2, but not allowing him to say how that was achieved. Earlier Government amendments have clouded the issue of whether policies and processes will be a subject for the Committee on Climate Change. Some of their amendments have taken out measures that were put in by our noble Friends in another place, and they have clouded the issue of whether the committee is simply an advisory body looking at a dry analysis, or a body that will be able to advise and comment on Government policy. I would welcome the Ministers clarification on his latest reading of the current version of the Bill, in response to the new clause.

Anne McIntosh: As with any other measure that will enhance the authority of the Committee on Climate Change, we are happy to lend the new clause our support. The content of the new clause echoes a number of our earlier debates, and perhaps the hon. Member for Cheltenham was being assiduous on the back of earlier comments when he tabled it. The duty of the committee is to advise the Secretary of State and report on progress, and the new clause would require the committee to publish that advice in an appropriate manner. It is thus interesting that the new clause does not go on to say that the advice should be debated by Committees of both Houses. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has considered that as it would enable not only the Secretary of State, but both Houses to consider that advice.
To have a group of such renowned experts as the Committee on Climate Change provide advice on policy matters should be considered not an onus, but rather a privilege for the Secretary of State, and I am sure that the Government will jump at the opportunity. I am mindful of our previous debates, and perhaps the Minister will look favourably on the new clause.

Phil Woolas: We are going back to our debate on clause 35 because the new clause is about the role of the committee. I fear that to hand over policy recommendations on
any policy matters related to climate change
would effectively franchise the Government to the committee. Let me explain our policy.
Clause 35 requires the committee to lay an annual report on its progress to Parliament. The committee also has duties to provide advice on carbon budgets and carry out a review of the level regarding the 2050 target date. Clause 37 contains further duties to provide advice, and clause 38(1) states:
The Committee may do anything that appears to it necessary or appropriate
in relation to any of its functions.
There is already considerable opportunity for the committee to express its views on progress in tackling climate change, but there are three reasons why I have a problem with the new clause. First, as I set out a moment ago in relation to new clauses 13 and 14, we must ensure that the committee is adequately resourced. The new clause could distract the committee from its key tasks. Secondly, the committee is set up as a UK-wide body that is responsible for the UK Government and devolved Administrations. Finally, the committees key role is to provide expert advice on the optimum levels of budgets and to report on the progress made towards that. We do not wish to include provisions in the Bill for the committee to come forward with specific policies.
To clarify the situation, when Lord Turner appeared before the EFRA Committee in March, he said that the role of the committee was to consider the range and effectiveness of the policies in place, because without that, a credible budget could not be recommended. He wishes to have a policy role in that regard. However, perhaps I may quote from the other place, when the Liberal Democrats argued against giving the committee a role on policies in that way. Lord Teverson said:
I will have a great concern if the Committee on Climate Change starts making major policy recommendations to government...It would not depoliticise the decisions but would utterly politicise the Committee on Climate Change.[Official Report, House of Lords, 8 January 2008; Vol. 697, c. 802.]
Looking at the existing policies of the Government of the day and making progress towards the budgets, when backed up with Lord Turners explanation, gives scope for what the hon. Gentlemans new clause rightfully addresses. However, the new clause goes too far because it franchises decisions of policy to what is ultimately an independent committee, not an accountable Government.

Martin Horwood: The Minister has cited some persuasive and authoritative voices in support of his case. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 18

Waste authoritys power to reduce amount of council tax payable
After section 13A of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 (c. 14) there is inserted
13B Power to reduce amount of tax payable in relation to household waste
(1) Where a person is liable to pay council tax in respect of any chargeable dwelling and any day, any waste collection authority or waste disposal authority may require the billing authority for the area in which the dwelling is situated to reduce the amount which he is liable to pay as respects the dwelling and the day to such extent as it thinks fit.
(2) The power under subsection (1) may only be exercised in connection with measures to reduce the amount of residual domestic waste produced in the authoritys area.
(3) The power under subsection (1) may be exercised in relation to particular cases or by determining a class of case in which liability is to be reduced to an extent provided by the determination.
(4) Where an authority exercises the power under subsection (1) the authority must pay or allow to the billing authority if requested an amount equivalent to the total reduction in the amount of tax payable each year as a result together with the reasonable administration costs of making such reductions..[Gregory Barker.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:

The Committee divided: Ayes 7, Noes 11.

Question accordingly negatived.

New Clause 19

Carbon emissions reduction targets: obligation to cooperate
(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations
(a) make provision requiring energy suppliers to cooperate with responsible local authorities in the preparation and delivery of relevant local area agreements, and
(b) make provision as to the arrangements for such cooperation.
(2) The Secretary of State may by regulations
(a) subject to subsection (3), make provision requiring energy suppliers to make such contribution as may be determined by the Secretary of State in respect of measures to achieve carbon emission reduction targets,
(b) make provision as to the arrangements for such contribution, in particular as to the restrictions upon energy suppliers in including any element of such contribution in charges to consumers.
(3) The contribution referred to in subsection (2) shall not exceed an amount equivalent to the sums raised through relevant consumer contributions made to energy suppliers.
(4) In this section
energy suppliers shall mean persons who are gas transporters or gas suppliers for the purposes of the Gas Act 1986 (c. 44); and persons who are electricity distributors or electricity suppliers for the purposes of the Electricity Act 1989 (c. 29);
responsible local authorities shall be as defined in section 103 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 (c. 28);
local area agreement shall be as defined in section 106 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007;
relevant consumer contributions shall mean those contributions made to energy suppliers by consumers in respect of Carbon Emission Reduction Targets as permitted by the Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Act 2006 (c. 19)..[Dr. Whitehead.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Alan Whitehead: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The purpose of the new clause is to suggest that the framework of the Bill be augmented by a number of practical measures. I believe that the carbon emissions reduction target programme is a superb addition to the armoury of action as far as climate change and energy efficiency are concerned. The resources of both the Government and energy utilities may be directed towards providing energy efficiency in homes. There is a process to ensure that fuel bills are lessened not by undertaking to provide assistance with payments, but as a result of changes to the way in which houses operate. The insulation of walls and microgeneration devices will lessen energy bills over a long period of time.
The new clause suggests that the CERT programme could be augmented and made even more effective by requiring utilities to contribute the amount of money that consumers are paying as a result of the programme, which is an average of £33 over the next few years. Utilities could place that money into an additional programme to ensure that energy efficiency was at its maximum in terms of changes to the way that households work. That could be done by ensuring that local authorities take the lead in identifying and undertaking work that can bring about energy efficiency.
With the contribution of the energy companies and the Warm Front programme, a range of programmes could be brought together to ensure that energy efficiency worked as well as possible. New clause 19, as hon. Members can see, would require energy suppliers to contribute that proportion of fundsthe £33 per consumerto the process. Therefore, the money, in addition to the £150 million that the CERT programme has already started to contribute towards the process, will be augmented by several hundred million pounds over a period of years, through the contribution of energy companiesutilitiesto the process.
One of the key targets of the Climate Change Bill is that we move permanently to a low-carbon economy. The success will be judged by whether that low-carbon economy works on a permanent basis, ensuring that we can live a life something like that which we live at the moment, but on the basis of a quantum reduction in carbon emissions as a result of our energy activities. That will be brought home, literally, by the preparation and retro-fitting, as it were, of homes across the country securing their domestic energy supplies on that low-carbon basis.
I anticipate that the exact wording of the new clause might not completely find favour, but I offer it as a structure for how we might proceed in making a real change, as a result of the Bill, to set us on the path to at least a firm low-carbon domestic economy. That, after all, accounts for something like 40 per cent. of the consumptionparticularly in heatin our energy economy. The new clause could make that substantial change to how those households work. I might add, in terms of the targets that the Government have set and continue to stand by, it would make a substantial contribution to the amelioration of fuel poverty by changing the basis on which people pay their energy bills. No longer would they be, as it were, a funded player in an energy market where prices inevitably are going to remain high, but they would have in their homes a facility to reduce their energy bills. They would have in their homes the equipment, devices and insulation, supported by the energy utilities, that would mean that their energy bills would stay permanently lower, with the savings that that would represent.

Gregory Barker: The new clause is interesting. At a time of an unprecedented rise in household energy costs, we must examine all options available to us to help bring down the cost of heating and the electricity bills for hard-working families, particularly those who live in fuel poverty.
It is, I am afraid, an indictment of the Government that 2.9 million people are still living in fuel poverty in this country. Bill payers already contribute £500 million a year to the alleviation of fuel poverty, through the carbon emissions reduction target. However, it is worth putting on record how inefficient much of that £500 million spent is. I thank the Local Government Association for the sterling research that it has carried out in this area and published in its report, Switched Off, Switched On.
Three central flaws were found with how the CERT process is run. First, as there are numerous suppliers serving the same areas, there is a lack of systematic area focus, which often means that vulnerable people in homes in need of insulation are left out because of the haphazard nature of the programme. Also, as suppliers are working towards meeting specific targets, once those targets are met the insulation programmes sometimes instantly stop, leaving a job half done.
Secondly, part of the £500 million CERT fund is spent on advertising the schemes and targeting houses that are eligible for upgrades. That results in a duplication of effort and wasting money, which would be far better spent providing insulation for the homes in most need.
Thirdly, a lack of accountability means that, while the insulating contractors are spending public money, they are only accountable to Ofgem, not to the householder in whose home the work is being done. For those reasons, I am happy to support new clause 19, which would require energy suppliers to work more closely with councils in targeting areas where fuel poverty is most severe.

Gordon Banks: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is aware that monitors, which can be placed on the electricity box, have been distributed in Scotland, possibly by the energy companies. The monitors send a remote signal to a screen that tells the householder their usage by the minute or the hour. When somebody switches something on, they can see the growth in usage. That is significant in making people aware of how much they are spending on electricity for their appliances. Does he agree that it would be worth expanding that scheme UK-wide?

Gregory Barker: Absolutely, a far more ambitious roll-out of smart meters, the technology to which the hon. Gentleman is referring, would be ideal. However, that is not central to the new clause.

John Gummer: I remind my hon. Friend that that was a proposal of the Quality of Life Policy Groups report, which we presented recently, and one of the criticisms in it was that the Government have had the opportunity of rolling out the technology under current legislation, which was introduced by the Liberal Democrats and went through the House of Commons, but which the Government still have not implemented. If they had done that 10 years ago, the whole country would have smart metering today.

Gregory Barker: Indeed, once again we have simply come back to the lack of ambition, drive and pace of Government progress. Let me come back to the point in hand. As a Conservative, I think that, where at all possible, local affairs should be organised and run locally, not directed centrally. This is a prime example of where more local co-operation would mean better value for money and a better quality of service for those families most in need of insulation and help.
Councils and other local authorities are best placed to engage with fuel poverty; they know the local area better than the energy companies do and, as a recent YouGov poll showed, 89 per cent. of British people feel that they are being ripped off by energy companies. One suspects that people will trust their own council more than they trust many of the energy companies. I would be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about those flaws in the CERT programme, identified by the LGA in its report, and what his response is to the eminently sensible proposals in new clause 19.
The new clause also deals with the emotive issue of what to do with the estimated £9 billion windfall, which energy generators have made from the first phase of the EU ETS. The chief executive of Ofgem, Alistair Buchanan, said in a statement earlier this year:
This windfall is nothing to do with collusion or anti-competitive behaviour, but stems from the free emission permits given to companies. That is why Ofgem is renewing its proposal that this windfall could be used to help customers in fuel poverty, who have been hardest hit by the recent energy price rises.
The proposal in the new clause that energy suppliers match the £500 million in investment with an equal amount drawn from their own funds not passported through from customers bills, is certainly an idea that warrants the Governments attention, although there are arguments against it, of course. I am looking forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about it. We must be mindful of the caveat that there is no point in legislating for such a requirement, if the cost will simply be passed back to the consumer again. This is no time to be adding additional burdens to the electricity, gas or heating bills of householders. That is where Alistair Buchanan and his Ofgem team come in. They will ensure that that does not happen. The Government would have to ensure that Ofgem had the regulatory powers to police that effectively.
This is an important and timely new clause. I hope that it will encourage the Minister to address some of these issues. It could make a qualitative difference to the everyday lives of the nearly 3 million people living in abject energy poverty in the UK today.

David Chaytor: If hon. Members were delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test chose to move the motion after the House adjourned, they will be even more delighted that one or two other Members want to speak. I will be very brief, but I want to speak in support of the principle of the new clause because it emphasises the importance of reducing demand as a solution to the problems of energy supply, as well as to climate change. It also introduces the importance of the role of local government in delivering policies to alleviate climate change. Too often in recent years, the role of local and regional government and of the devolved Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament have been overlooked.
I will use the new clause to raise an issue that I hope the Minister will take up in his response, and that is the role of local area agreements in delivering climate change policy. Within the new performance indicator regime, there are 185 performance indicators, only three of which are directly relevant to climate change and none of which is compulsory in the local area agreement system. I think that that point will be highlighted in the latest report of the Environmental Audit Committee, which examines the role of local and regional government in delivering climate change policy. Will the Minister discuss the range of performance indicators with his counterpart in the Department for Communities and Local Government with a view to reconsidering whether the three out of 185 indicators are sufficient to make a meaningful difference in the way in which local government pursues the climate change agenda?

Steve Webb: I add my support to the new clause. The scale of fuel poverty that we face and that we will face when the next round of gas and electricity price increases comes through, is far worse than the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle indicated. The scale of fuel poverty is always understated by the figures because they are always years out of date. There are big fuel price increases coming down the track. As has been said, it is vital that, rather than solely help poor people to pay soaring bills, we tackle the demand side and do something about the soaring bills. That is why I welcome the new clause.
I want to home in on one aspect of the existing programmes that was touched on by the hon. Member for Southampton, Test. It relates to the current structure of the Warm Front programme and the CERT programme. The new clause is preferable because of the integration with local government and the idea of neighbourhood-based initiatives. My worry is that the balance in the spending on home insulation and energy efficiency programmes is overwhelmingly on piecemeal, individual-based schemes.
Warm Front is a good thing, but individuals have to hear about it and apply individually. It is very time and energy intensive to find the right people and to get the programme to individual households. Likewise, with the CERT obligation, energy companies have to identify vulnerable households and we know the problems with that. Again, it deals with a house here and a house there. Some are geographically concentrated, but some suppliers are nationwide. It feels incredibly inefficient.
The worry about all such initiatives is the gaps. One can think of the types of households that are hard to reach: houses in multiple occupation, those in more rural and remote areas and old houses that are hard to heat and insulate. Only an area-based approach would address all those categories. I want the new clause to lead local authorities to work with the energy companies to sweep through whole areas, to take owner-occupied, social-rented, owned-outright, fuel-poor, non-fuel poor, old and young households and get on with the process of insulation and energy efficiency in a systematic way. The piecemeal schemes have done their bit, but it is now time to be systematic. When I raised the matter with the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford, she said that the Government had a budget for area schemes, but my sense was that their budget for area-based initiatives was tiny in relation to the cost of Warm Front and the cost of the CERT.
In my judgment, the balance needs to be completely swapped over because the time for one here, one therein a world of scarce energy, soaring energy prices and the need to tackle demandhas gone. I warmly welcome the sweep and ambition of the LGAs proposals, and I hope that the Government will respond sympathetically to the new clause.

Phil Woolas: My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test who spoke to the new clause, backed up by the Local Government Association, is on to a policy that carries a lot of merit. I shall explain our support in principle for the thrust of the policy as well as the specific problems that we have with it at the moment. Of course, the Government recognise the crucial role of local authorities in helping to tackle energy demand from existing homes, both social housing and private, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North referred. Local authorities have a unique relationship and have the best knowledge of where the housing need is situated.
Indeed, the best partnerships for tackling emissions through homes, and fuel poverty, are when the schemes join together. I point the Committee to Easington in County Durham where the local authority and Warm Front have a partnership that has identified not only the heating system in every building in the district, but the number of radiators, the type of radiators, which have been done and which have not been done. It has a database to that effect.

Joan Walley: When my hon. Friend comes to Stoke-on-Trent in the not too distant future, will he say a little about the way in which the local agreements actually work?

Phil Woolas: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I shall fulfil that pledge before the recess.
Having steered local government legislation through this place, I am in a unique position to respond to the point about local area agreements. I shall explain the architecture briefly. There is, in fact, a suite of 235 performance indicators set down by the national Government in agreement, including the children and young peoples indicators, some of which are compulsory as we would expect. However, the suite of performance indicators from which local councils can choose, as part of their local area agreements in conjunction with other public sector departments, including central Government Departments, is voluntary, as part of the devolutionary move that the Government have made. Within that are a few indicators, two specifically on climate change.
The first indicator is for the local authority to address its own emissions, activities, buildings, social services, transport and so on. The second more important indicator is for the local authority to take responsibility for the whole of the emissions in its area. I am delighted to report the high numbers of local authorities that have chosen to include climate change performance indicators in their agreements. I stress that 99 per cent. of local area agreementsand all of them are signed offnow include at least one of the two climate change mitigation indicators, and 100 out of the 150 include targets relating to the per capita emissions throughout the area. There is a huge thrust of support for the argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test.
The targets are not compulsory, but the argument put specifically by the hon. Member for Northavon is that the economies of scale of retro-fitting UK housing point towards geographical area-based schemes. The cost of retro-fitting, which goes back to his point, is incurred in the visit, not the kit. In social housing one can get around that by having state-wide schemes, although I am not saying that they are without problems. One has to counter against that the energy market that we have. I say to the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle, who is substantially younger than I, that, regarding where this energy market comes from, the response is, Tell Sid. Had we not told Sid we would not be here now, we would have probably finished the retro-fitting by now, but I tease the young gentleman.
The Committee should not underestimate the work that has been done already in retro-fitting homes. It is not a small exercise that has already been completed. It was this Government who introduced the energy efficiency commitment scheme in 2002, so some of the criticism is a bit rich, but perhaps I am getting old and grumpy at this time of night.
The difficulty comes in the nature of the energy market. We have placed a greater obligation on the CERT scheme to provide for retro-fitting[Interruption.] I have completely lost my thread. My Whip is questioning my age; she is being kind, I think. The obligation to help vulnerable households has been increased in terms of the total number, with 40 per cent. of the £1.5 billion aimed in that direction. There are two difficulties, however. First, my officials, in preparation for this debate, have talked to the energy regulator, the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets. Under the existing framework for the energy market, there is no way that we could guarantee that the new clause as it stands would not simply put up the prices to consumers. There is no way of achieving the desirable objective that my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test outlined, which is that the costs should be passed on to the company rather than the consumer. That would be one thing that we would need to look at in the run-up to the successor to CERT, as we take this debate forward.
Secondly, the new clause would apply to all energy companies, whereas CERT applies to the six major energy companies, so there would be an unintended consequence. There is no doubt, however, that the partnership approach under the new devolved performance indicator regime, using the Warm Front, CERT and other programmes, is a good one. The hon. Member for Northavon was kind enough to mention the sums of money specifically and he is right that it is a big sum of moneyabout £6 millionbut compared with CERT it is not a huge sum. There is much merit to the campaign and to the new clause, but there are specific difficulties that would have unintended consequences, given the current legislative framework under which we are working. That is why I accept the spirit of the new clause, but would ask hon. Members to consider the specific practicalities.

Alan Whitehead: I am pleased to hear from my hon. Friend that he is encouraged by the spirit of the new clause and the partnership that is at its centre. I also endorse what my hon. Friends and hon. Members have said about the difference between schemes where individual homes are retro-fitted, however well that may be carried out, and the extent to which energy companies are searching out those homes in order to undertake CERT activity. The possible area arrangements would involve local authorities, with their knowledge and understanding of their communities and the conditions of homes there. Such an approach to the energy efficiency of homes would represent a quantum change in how the carbon outputs of our homes must operate in the next few years.
I might add that my conversations about the new clause have concerned not just the role of local authorities. Registered social landlords would be keen to undertake such activity, in association with local authorities, to ensure that we have warm and energy-efficient homes, which are using less energy and not more, so that bills reduce rather than increase as the warmth, insulation and energy efficiency of homes increase. I consider myself encouraged by the response of my hon. Friend the Minister, who, I imagine, will go away and look at the drafting of those small bits of the new clause that do not quite add up, eliminating those and producing a perfect result. That could ensure that such a scheme becomes a reality, at the next stage of the Climate Change Bill. Therefore, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Schedule 1

Charges for single use carrier bags

Part 1

Powers to make regulations about charges

General power
1 The relevant national authority may make provision by regulations about charging by sellers of goods for the supply of single use carrier bags.

Requirement to charge
2 The regulations may make provision requiring sellers of goods to charge for single use carrier bags supplied
(a) at the place where the goods are sold, for the purpose of enabling the goods to be taken away, or
(b) for the purpose of enabling the goods to be delivered.

Sellers of goods
3 (1) Seller, in relation to goods, has the meaning given by the regulations which may define that term by reference (in particular) to
(a) a persons involvement in selling the goods,
(b) a persons interest in the goods, or
(c) a persons interest in the place at or from which the goods are sold,
or any combination of those factors.
(2) The regulations may make provision for regulations under this Schedule to apply
(a) to all sellers of goods,
(b) to sellers of goods named in the regulations,
(c) to sellers of goods identified by reference to specified factors, or
(d) to sellers of goods within paragraph (b) and sellers of goods within paragraph (c).
(3) The specified factors may include
(a) the place or places at or from which a seller supplies goods;
(b) the type of goods that a seller supplies;
(c) the value of goods that a seller supplies;
(d) a sellers turnover or any part of that turnover.
(4) In this Schedule specified means specified in regulations under this Schedule.

Amount of charge
4 The regulations may specify the minimum amount that a seller must charge for each single use carrier bag, or provide for that amount to be determined in accordance with the regulations.

Single use carrier bags
5 Single use carrier bag has the meaning given by the regulations, which may define that term by reference (in particular) to
(a) a bags size, thickness, construction, composition or other characteristics, or
(b) its intended use,
or any combination of those factors.

Administration
6 (1) The regulations may appoint a person (an administrator) to administer provision made by regulations under this Schedule.
(2) More than one person may be appointed as administrator.
(3) The regulations may confer or impose powers or duties on an administrator and may (in particular) do so
(a) by making modifications to any enactment applying to the administrator, or
(b) by providing for any such enactment to apply, with or without modifications, for the purposes of regulations under this Schedule.
(4) References in this Schedule to an administrator include a person appointed by an administrator.

Record-keeping and publication of records
7 (1) The regulations may require records to be kept relating to charges made for single use carrier bags.
(2) The regulations may require
(a) the records, or such other information as may be specified, to be published at such times and in such manner as may be specified;
(b) the records, or such other information as may be specified, to be supplied on request and in such manner as may be specified to
(i) the relevant national authority,
(ii) an administrator, or
(iii) members of the public.
(3) The regulations may (in particular) require the publication or supply of records or information relating to any of the following
(a) the amount received by a seller by way of charges for single use carrier bags;
(b) the sellers gross or net proceeds of the charge;
(c) the uses to which the net proceeds of the charge have been put.
(4) In this paragraph
gross proceeds of the charge means the amount received by the seller by way of charges for single use carrier bags;
net proceeds of the charge means the sellers gross proceeds of the charge reduced by such amounts as may be specified.

Enforcement
8 (1) The regulations may confer or impose powers or duties on an administrator to enforce provision made by regulations under this Schedule.
(2) The regulations may (in particular) confer powers on an administrator to
(a) require the production of documents or the provision of information, or
(b) question a seller or officers or employees of a seller.
(3) Regulations under sub-paragraph (2) must contain provision for ensuring that the power in question is exercised by a person only where the person reasonably believes there has been a failure to comply with a requirement of regulations under this Schedule.

Part 2

Civil sanctions

Civil sanctions
9 (1) The relevant national authority may make provision by regulations about civil sanctions for breaches of regulations under this Schedule.
(2) For the purposes of this Schedule a person breaches regulations under this Schedule if, in such circumstances as may be specified, the person
(a) fails to comply with a requirement made by or under the regulations, or
(b) obstructs or fails to assist an administrator.
(3) In this Schedule civil sanction means
(a) a fixed monetary penalty (see paragraph 10), or
(b) a discretionary requirement (see paragraph 12).

Fixed monetary penalties
10 (1) The regulations may make provision conferring on an administrator the power by notice to impose a fixed monetary penalty on a person who breaches regulations under this Schedule.
(2) The regulations may only confer such a power in relation to a case where the administrator is satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the breach has occurred.
(3) For the purposes of this Schedule a fixed monetary penalty is a requirement to pay to an administrator a penalty of an amount specified in or determined in accordance with the regulations.
(4) The regulations may not provide for the imposition of a fixed monetary penalty in excess of £5,000.

Fixed monetary penalties: procedure
11 (1) Provision under paragraph 10 must secure that
(a) where an administrator proposes to impose a fixed monetary penalty on a person, the administrator must serve on that person a notice of what is proposed (a notice of intent) that complies with sub-paragraph (2),
(b) the notice of intent also offers the person the opportunity to discharge the persons liability for the fixed monetary penalty by payment of a specified sum (which must be less than or equal to the amount of the penalty),
(c) if the person does not so discharge liability
(i) the person may make written representations and objections to the administrator in relation to the proposed imposition of the fixed monetary penalty, and
(ii) the administrator must at the end of the period for making representations and objections decide whether to impose the fixed monetary penalty,
(d) where the administrator decides to impose the fixed monetary penalty, the notice imposing it (the final notice) complies with sub-paragraph (4), and
(e) the person on whom a fixed monetary penalty is imposed may appeal against the decision to impose it.
(2) To comply with this sub-paragraph the notice of intent must include information as to
(a) the grounds for the proposal to impose the fixed monetary penalty.
(b) the effect of payment of the sum referred to in sub-paragraph (1)(b),
(c) the right to make representations and objections,
(d) the circumstances in which the administrator may not impose the fixed monetary penalty,
(e) the period within which liability to the fixed monetary penalty may be discharged, which may not exceed the period of 28 days beginning with the day on which the notice of intent was received, and
(f) the period within which representations and objections may be made, which may not exceed the period of 28 days beginning with the day on which the notice of intent was received.
(3) Provision pursuant to sub-paragraph (1)(c)(ii) must include provision for circumstances in which the administrator may not decide to impose a fixed monetary penalty.
(4) To comply with this sub-paragraph the final notice referred to in sub-paragraph (1)(d) must include information as to
(a) the grounds for imposing the penalty,
(b) how payment may be made,
(c) the period within which payment must be made,
(d) any early payment discounts or late payment penalties,
(e) rights of appeal, and
(f) the consequences of non-payment.
(5) Provision pursuant to sub-paragraph (1)(e) must secure that the grounds on which a person may appeal against a decision of the administrator include the following
(a) that the decision was based on an error of fact;
(b) that the decision was wrong in law;
(c) that the decision was unreasonable.

Discretionary requirements
12 (1) The regulations may make provision conferring on an administrator the power by notice to impose one or more discretionary requirements on a person who breaches regulations under this Schedule.
(2) The regulations may only confer such a power in relation to a case where the administrator is satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the breach has occurred.
(3) For the purposes of this Schedule a discretionary requirement means
(a) a requirement to pay a monetary penalty to an administrator of such amount as the administrator may determine, or
(b) a requirement to take such steps as an administrator may specify, within such period as the administrator may specify, to secure that the breach does not continue or recur.
(4) In this Schedule
variable monetary penalty means a requirement referred to in sub-paragraph (3)(a);
non-monetary discretionary requirement means a requirement referred to in sub-paragraph (3)(b).
(5) The regulations must, in relation to each kind of breach of regulations under this Schedule for which a variable monetary penalty may be imposed
(a) specify the maximum penalty that may be imposed for a breach of that kind, or
(b) provide for that maximum to be determined in accordance with the regulations.
(6) The regulations may not permit discretionary requirements to be imposed on a person on more than one occasion in relation to the same act or omission.

Discretionary requirements: procedure
13 (1) Provision under paragraph 12 must secure that
(a) where an administrator proposes to impose a discretionary requirement on a person, the administrator must serve on that person a notice of what is proposed (a notice of intent) that complies with sub-paragraph (2),
(b) that person may make written representations and objections to the administrator in relation to the proposed imposition of the discretionary requirement,
(c) after the end of the period for making such representations and objections, the administrator must decide whether to
(i) impose the discretionary requirement, with or without modifications, or
(ii) impose any other discretionary requirement that the administrator has power to impose under paragraph 12,
(d) where the administrator decides to impose a discretionary requirement, the notice imposing it (the final notice) complies with sub-paragraph (4), and
(e) the person on whom a discretionary requirement is imposed may appeal against the decision to impose it.
(2) To comply with this sub-paragraph the notice of intent must include information as to
(a) the grounds for the proposal to impose the discretionary requirement,
(b) the right to make representations and objections,
(c) the circumstances in which the administrator may not impose the discretionary requirement,
(d) the period within which representations and objections may be made, which may not be less than the period of 28 days beginning with the day on which the notice of intent is received.
(3) Provision pursuant to sub-paragraph (1)(c) must include provision for circumstances in which the administrator may not decide to impose a fixed monetary penalty.
(4) To comply with this sub-paragraph the final notice referred to in sub-paragraph (1)(d) must include information as to
(a) the grounds for imposing the discretionary requirement,
(b) where the discretionary requirement is a variable monetary penalty
(i) how payment may be made,
(ii) the period within which payment must be made, and
(iii) any early payment discounts or late payment penalties,
(c) rights of appeal, and
(d) the consequences of non-compliance.
(5) Provision pursuant to sub-paragraph (1)(e) must secure that the grounds on which a person may appeal against a decision of the administrator include the following
(a) that the decision was based on an error of fact;
(b) that the decision was wrong in law;
(c) in the case of a variable monetary penalty, that the amount of the penalty is unreasonable;
(d) in the case of a non-monetary discretionary requirement, that the nature of the requirement is unreasonable;
(e) that the decision was unreasonable for any other reason.

Discretionary requirements: enforcement
14 (1) Provision under paragraph 12 may include provision for a person to pay a monetary penalty (a non-compliance penalty) to an administrator if the person fails to comply with a non-monetary discretionary requirement imposed on the person.
(2) Provision under sub-paragraph (1) may
(a) specify the amount of the non-compliance penalty or provide for that amount to be determined in accordance with the regulations, or
(b) provide for the amount to be determined by the administrator or in some other way.
(3) If the regulations make provision within sub-paragraph (2)(b), they must, in relation to each kind of failure for which a non-compliance penalty may be imposed
(a) specify the maximum penalty that may be imposed for a failure of that kind, or
(b) provide for that maximum to be determined in accordance with the regulations.
(4) Provision under sub-paragraph (1) must secure that
(a) the non-compliance penalty is imposed by notice served by the administrator, and
(b) the person on whom it is imposed may appeal against that notice.
(5) Provision pursuant to paragraph (b) of sub-paragraph (4) must secure that the grounds on which a person may appeal against a notice referred to in that sub-paragraph include the following
(a) that the decision to serve the notice was based on an error of fact;
(b) that the decision was wrong in law;
(c) that the decision was unfair or unreasonable for any reason (including, in a case where the amount of the non-compliance penalty was determined by the administrator, that the amount is unreasonable).

Combination of sanctions
15 (1) Provision may not be made under paragraphs 10 and 12 conferring powers on an administrator in relation to the same kind of breach of regulations under this Schedule unless it complies with the following requirements.
(2) The provision must secure that the administrator may not serve a notice of intent referred to in paragraph 11(1)(a) on a person in relation to a breach where a discretionary requirement has been imposed on that person in relation to the same breach.
(3) Such provision must secure that the administrator may not serve a notice of intent referred to in paragraph 13(1)(a) on a person in relation to a breach where
(a) a fixed monetary penalty has been imposed on that person in relation to the same breach, or
(b) the person has discharged liability to a fixed monetary penalty in relation to that breach pursuant to paragraph 11(1)(b).

Monetary penalties
16 (1) If the regulations confer power on an administrator to require a person to pay a fixed monetary penalty, a variable monetary penalty or a non-compliance penalty under paragraph 14(1), they may include provision
(a) for early payment discounts;
(b) for the payment of interest or other financial penalties for late payment of the penalty, such interest or other financial penalties not in total to exceed the amount of that penalty;
(c) for enforcement of the penalty.
(2) Provision under sub-paragraph (1)(c) may include
(a) provision for the administrator to recover the penalty, and any interest or other financial penalty for late payment, as a civil debt;
(b) provision for the penalty, and any interest or other financial penalty for late payment to be recoverable, on the order of a court, as if payable under a court order.

Costs recovery
17 (1) Provision under paragraph 12 may include provision for an administrator, by notice, to require a person on whom a discretionary requirement is imposed to pay the costs incurred by the administrator in relation to the imposition of the discretionary requirement up to the time of its imposition.
(2) In sub-paragraph (1), the reference to costs includes in particular
(a) investigation costs;
(b) administration costs;
(c) costs of obtaining expert advice (including legal advice).
(3) Provision under this paragraph must secure that, in any case where a notice requiring payment of costs is served
(a) the notice specifies the amount required to be paid;
(b) the administrator may be required to provide a detailed breakdown of that amount;
(c) the person required to pay costs is not liable to pay any costs shown by the person to have been unnecessarily incurred;
(d) the person required to pay costs may appeal against
(i) the decision of the administrator to impose the requirement to pay costs;
(ii) the decision of the administrator as to the amount of those costs.
(4) Provision under this paragraph may include the provision referred to in paragraph 16(1)(b) and (c) and (2).
(5) Provision under this paragraph must secure that the administrator is required to publish guidance about how the administrator will exercise the power conferred by the provision.

Appeals
18 (1) The regulations may not provide for the making of an appeal other than to
(a) the First-tier Tribunal, or
(b) another tribunal created under an enactment.
(2) In sub-paragraph (1)(b) tribunal does not include an ordinary court of law.
(3) If the regulations make provision for an appeal in relation to the imposition of any requirement or service of any notice, they may include
(a) provision suspending the requirement or notice pending determination of the appeal;
(b) provision as to the powers of the tribunal to which the appeal is made;
(c) provision as to how any sum payable in pursuance of a decision of that tribunal is to be recoverable.
(4) The provision referred to in sub-paragraph (3)(b) includes provision conferring on the tribunal to which the appeal is made power
(a) to withdraw the requirement or notice;
(b) to confirm the requirement or notice;
(c) to take such steps as the administrator could take in relation to the act or omission giving rise to the requirement or notice;
(d) to remit the decision whether to confirm the requirement or notice, or any matter relating to that decision, to the administrator;
(e) to award costs.

Publicity for imposition of civil sanctions
19 (1) The regulations may make provision enabling an administrator to give a publicity notice to a person on whom a civil sanction has been imposed in accordance with regulations under this Schedule.
(2) A publicity notice is a notice requiring the person to publicise
(a) the fact that the civil sanction has been imposed, and
(b) such other information as may be specified in the regulations,
in such manner as may be specified in the notice.
(3) The regulations may provide for a publicity notice to
(a) specify the time for compliance with the notice, and
(b) require the person to whom it is given to supply an administrator with evidence of compliance within such time as may be specified in the notice.
(4) The regulations may provide that, if a person fails to comply with a publicity notice, an administrator may
(a) publicise the information required to be publicised by the notice, and
(b) recover the costs of doing so from that person.

Persons liable to civil sanctions
20 The regulations may make provision about the persons liable to civil sanctions under regulations under this Schedule and may (in particular) provide for
(a) the officers of a body corporate to be so liable as well the body corporate itself, and
(b) for the partners of a partnership to be liable as well as the partnership itself,
in such circumstances as may be specified.

Guidance as to use of civil sanctions
21 (1) Where power is conferred on an administrator by the regulations to impose a civil sanction in relation to a breach of regulations under this Schedule, the provision conferring the power must secure that
(a) the administrator must publish guidance about the administrators use of the civil sanction,
(b) the guidance must contain the relevant information,
(c) the administrator must revise the guidance where appropriate,
(d) the administrator must consult such persons as the provision may specify before publishing any guidance or revised guidance, and
(e) the administrator must have regard to the guidance or revised guidance in exercising the administrators functions.
(2) In the case of guidance relating to a fixed monetary penalty, the relevant information referred to in sub-paragraph (1)(b) is information as to
(a) the circumstances in which the penalty is likely to be imposed,
(b) the circumstances in which it may not be imposed,
(c) the amount of the penalty,
(d) how liability for the penalty may be discharged and the effect of discharge, and
(e) rights to make representations and objections and rights of appeal.
(3) In the case of guidance relating to a discretionary requirement, the relevant information referred to in sub-paragraph (1)(b) is information as to
(a) the circumstances in which the requirement is likely to be imposed,
(b) the circumstances in which it may not be imposed,
(c) in the case of a variable monetary penalty, the matters likely to be taken into account by the administrator in determining the amount of the penalty (including, where relevant, any discounts for voluntary reporting of non-compliance), and
(d) rights to make representations and objections and rights of appeal.

Publication of enforcement action
22 (1) Where power is conferred on an administrator by the regulations to impose a civil sanction in relation to a breach of regulations under this Schedule, the provision conferring the power must, subject to this paragraph, secure that the administrator must from time to time publish reports specifying
(a) the cases in which the civil sanction has been imposed, and
(b) where the civil sanction is a fixed monetary penalty, the cases in which liability to the penalty has been discharged pursuant to paragraph 11(1)(b).
(2) In sub-paragraph (1)(a), the reference to cases in which the civil sanction has been imposed do not include cases where the sanction has been imposed but overturned on appeal.
(3) The provision conferring the power need not secure the result in sub-paragraph (1) in cases where the relevant authority considers that it would be inappropriate to do so.

Compliance with regulatory principles
23 A relevant national authority may not make any provision conferring power on an administrator to impose a civil sanction in relation to a breach of regulations under this Schedule unless the authority is satisfied that the administrator will act in accordance with the principles that
(a) regulatory activities should be carried out in a way that is transparent, accountable, proportionate and consistent;
(b) regulatory activities should be targeted only at cases in which action is needed.

Review
24 (1) A relevant national authority must in accordance with this paragraph review the operation of any provision made by the authority conferring power on an administrator to impose a civil sanction in relation to a breach of regulations under this Schedule.
(2) The review must take place as soon as practicable after the end of the period of three years beginning with the day on which the provision comes into force.
(3) The review must in particular consider whether the provision has implemented its objectives efficiently and effectively.
(4) In conducting a review under this paragraph the relevant national authority must consult such persons as the authority considers appropriate.
(5) The relevant national authority must publish the results of a review under this section.
(6) The relevant national authority must lay a copy of a review under this paragraph before
(a) Parliament (where the relevant national authority is the Secretary of State);
(b) the National Assembly for Wales (where the relevant national authority is the Welsh Ministers);
(c) the Northern Ireland Assembly (where the relevant national authority is the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland).

Suspension
25 (1) Where provision has been made by a relevant national authority conferring power on an administrator to impose a civil sanction in relation to a breach of regulations under this Schedule, the authority may direct the administrator
(a) where the power is power to impose a fixed monetary penalty, not to serve any further notice of intent referred to in paragraph 11(1)(a) in relation to a breach of that kind, and
(b) where the power is power to impose a discretionary requirement, not to serve any further notice of intent referred to in paragraph 13(1)(a) in relation to a breach of that kind.
(2) The relevant national authority may only give a direction under sub-paragraph (1) in relation to a breach of regulations under this Schedule if it is satisfied that the administrator has failed on more than one occasion
(a) to comply with any duty imposed on it under or by virtue of this Schedule in relation to a breach of that kind,
(b) to act in accordance with the guidance it has published in relation to a breach of that kind (in particular, the guidance published under paragraph 21), or
(c) to act in accordance with the principles referred to in paragraph 23 or with other principles of best practice in relation to the enforcement of a breach of that kind.
(3) The relevant national authority may by direction revoke a direction given by it under sub-paragraph (1) if satisfied that the administrator has taken the appropriate steps to remedy the failure to which that direction related.
(4) Before giving a direction under sub-paragraph (1) or (3) the relevant national authority must consult
(a) the administrator, and
(b) such other persons as the authority considers appropriate.
(5) Where the relevant national authority gives a direction under this section, the authority must lay a copy before
(a) Parliament (where the relevant national authority is the Secretary of State);
(b) the National Assembly for Wales (where the relevant national authority is the Welsh Ministers);
(c) the Northern Ireland Assembly (where the relevant national authority is the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland).
(6) Where the relevant national authority gives a direction under this section, the administrator must
(a) publish the direction in such manner as the authority thinks fit, and
(b) take such other steps as the administrator thinks fit or the authority may require to bring the direction to the attention of other persons likely to be affected by it.

Payment of penalties into Consolidated Fund
26 (1) Where pursuant to any provision made under this Schedule an administrator receives
(a) a fixed monetary penalty, a variable monetary penalty or a non-compliance penalty under paragraph 14,
(b) any interest or other financial penalty for late payment of such a penalty, or
(c) a sum paid in discharge of liability to a fixed monetary penalty pursuant to paragraph 11(1)(b),
the administrator must pay it into the relevant Fund.
(2) In sub-paragraph (1) relevant Fund means
(a) in a case where the administrator has functions only in relation to Wales, the Welsh Consolidated Fund,
(b) in a case where the administrator has functions only in relation to Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund, and
(c) in any other case, the Consolidated Fund.

Part 3

Procedures applying to regulations
27 (1) This paragraph applies in relation to an instrument containing regulations under this Schedule made by a single national authority.
(2) Where the instrument contains regulations that
(a) are to be made by the Secretary of State, and
(b) are subject to affirmative resolution procedure,
the regulations must not be made unless a draft of the statutory instrument containing them has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.
(3) Where the instrument contains regulations that
(a) are to be made by a national authority other than the Secretary of State, and
(b) are subject to affirmative resolution procedure,
the regulations must not be made unless a draft of the statutory instrument containing them has been laid before and approved by a resolution of the relevant devolved legislature.
(4) An instrument containing regulations made by the Secretary of State that are subject to negative resolution procedure is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.
(5) An instrument containing regulations made by the Welsh Ministers that are subject to negative resolution procedure is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of the National Assembly for Wales.
(6) An instrument containing regulations made by the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland that are subject to negative resolution procedure is subject to negative resolution within the meaning of section 41(6) of the Interpretation Act (Northern Ireland) 1954 (c. 33 (N.I.)) as if it were a statutory instrument within the meaning of that Act.
(7) Any provision that may be made by regulations subject to negative resolution procedure may be made by regulations subject to affirmative resolution procedure.

Regulations made by two or more national authorities
28 (1) This paragraph applies in relation to an instrument containing regulations under this Schedule made or to be made by any two or more of
(a) the Secretary of State,
(b) the Welsh Ministers, and
(c) the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland.
(2) If any of the regulations are subject to affirmative resolution procedure, all of them are subject to that procedure.
(3) Sub-paragraphs (2) to (6) of paragraph 27 apply to the instrument as they apply to an instrument containing regulations made by a single national authority.
(4) If in accordance with that paragraph
(a) either House of Parliament resolves that an address be presented to Her Majesty praying that an instrument containing regulations made by the Secretary of State be annulled, or
(b) a devolved legislature resolves that an instrument containing regulations made by a national authority be annulled,
nothing further is to be done under the instrument after the date of the resolution and Her Majesty may by Order in Council revoke the instrument.
(5) This is without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done under the instrument or to the making of a new instrument.
(6) This paragraph applies in place of provision made by any other enactment about the effect of such a resolution.

Hybrid instruments
29 If a draft of an instrument containing regulations under this Schedule would, apart from this paragraph, be treated for the purposes of the standing orders of either House of Parliament as a hybrid instrument, it is to proceed in that House as if it were not such an instrument..[Mr. Woolas.]

Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

Clause 81 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 82

Orders and regulations

Amendments made: No. 86, in clause 82, page 38, line 24, after schemes), insert
or Schedule [Charges for single use carrier bags] (charges for single use carrier bags).
No. 87, in clause 82, page 38, line 26, after Part, insert or Schedule.[Mr. Woolas.]

Clause 82, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 83

affirmative and negative resolution procedure

Amendment made: No. 88, in clause 83, page 39, line 14, at end add , or
( ) regulations under Schedule [Charges for single use carrier bags] (but see Part 3 of that Schedule).[Mr. Woolas.]

Clause 83, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses84 to 88 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 89

Minor definitions

Amendment made: No. 89, in clause 89, page 40, line 43, at end insert
modifications, in relation to an enactment, includes additions or amendments to, or omissions from, the enactment;.[Mr. Woolas.]

Clause 89, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 90

Index of defined expressions

Amendments made: No. 90, in clause 90, page 41, line 11, at end insert
administrator (in Schedule [Charges for single use carrier bags])
paragraph 6(1) and (4) of Schedule [Charges for single use carrier bags].
No. 91, in clause 90, page 41, line 23, at end insert
civil sanction (in Schedule [Charges for single use carrier bags])
paragraph 9(3) of Schedule [Charges for single use carrier bags].
No. 92, in clause 90, page 41, line 37, at end insert
discretionary requirement (in Schedule [Charges for single use carrier bags])
paragraph 12(3) of Schedule [Charges for single use carrier bags].
No. 93, in clause 90, page 42, line 11, at end insert
fixed monetary penalty (in Schedule [Charges for single use carrier bags])
paragraph 10(3) of Schedule [Charges for single use carrier bags].
No. 94, in clause 90, page 42, line 16, at end insert
modifications, in relation to an enactment
section 89.
No. 95, in clause 90, page 42, line 24, at end insert
non-monetary discretionary requirement (in Schedule [Charges for single use carrier bags])
paragraph 12(4) of Schedule [Charges for single use carrier bags].
No. 96, in clause 90, page 42, line 30, at end insert
the relevant national authority (in Schedule [Charges for single use carrier bags])
section [Charges for single use carrier bags](3).
No. 97, in clause 90, page 42, line 34, at end insert
seller (in Schedule [Charges for single use carrier bags])
paragraph 3 of Schedule [Charges for single use carrier bags]
single use carrier bag (in Schedule [Charges for single use carrier bags])
paragraph 5 of Schedule [Charges for single use carrier bags]
specified (in Schedule [Charges for single use carrier bags])
paragraph 3(4) of Schedule [Charges for single use carrier bags]. 
No. 98, in clause 90, page 43, line 5, at end insert
variable monetary penalty (in Schedule [Charges for single use carrier bags])
paragraph 12(4) of Schedule [Charges for single use carrier bags].

[Mr. Woolas.]

Clause 90, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 91

Extent

Amendments made: No. 99, in clause 91, page 43, line 11, leave out in subsection (2) and insert below.
No. 25, in clause 91, page 43, line 14, at end insert
( ) section [Collection of household waste] (collection of household waste);.
No. 100, in clause 91, page 43, line 16, at end insert
( ) Section [Charges for single use carrier bags] and Schedule [Charges for single use carrier bags] (charges for single use carrier bags) extend to England and Wales and Northern Ireland only..[Mr. Woolas.]

Clause 91, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 92 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 93

Short title

Phil Woolas: I beg to move amendment No. 30, in clause 93, page 43, line 32, leave out subsection (2).
The amendment will delete in the usual way the privilege amendment that was inserted into the Bill in the other place. It is the privilege of this House to control charges on public funds. When a Bill is introduced in the other place, a privilege amendment is, by convention, moved before the Bill is brought to the House, so as to avoid infringing that privilege.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 93, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Title

Amendments made: No. 26,in title, line 8, after produced;, insert
to make provision about the collection of household waste;.
No. 101, in title, line 8, after produced;, insert
to confer powers to make provision about charging for single use carrier bags;.[Mr. Woolas.]

Ordered,
That certain written evidence already reported to the House be appended to the proceedings of the Committee.[Mr. Woolas.]

Bill, as amended, to be reported.

Committee rose at two minutes past Eleven oclock.